Wow! What a market we are building here on Oahu. All housing metrics are improving, improving, improving . . . to the point that our real estate market is almost running at optimal pace! Take a look at the latest report from our MLS, comparing July 2013 with last July:
Gains in closed sales and price increases have been solid over the past year. And an 8.2% rise in average prices for both condos and single family homes is great news! Let’s look at these numbers in a little more detail.
Once again, the stats reveal across the board improvement. I want to pull out four of these key metrics to illustrate graphically. I believe these will demonstrate the strength of the current market and a basis for continued optimism. Note that in these graphs, Single Family Homes are indicated by the Blue line, Condos, by the Red. First, numbers of closed sales:
Solid improvement: especially when you consider that back in Feb of 2012 we closed just 227 Condos and, a month earlier, just 175 Single Family Homes! Equally impressive is the graph showing increases in Sales Price as a % of List Price. Basically, this indicates how far down from List Price sellers had to come to make a sale:
Since October we have had a steady increase in this metric, gaining about 4% in what sellers received in offers. Why, last month, all of our closed condo listings were for full list price! As everything has picked up, the average days on market for a listing has fallen:
Last month it took just 17 days to sell a home, 20 to sell a condo. Finally, let’s take a look at months of inventory currently for sale in the MLS:
This number is derived by dividing the number of active listings in MLS by the current rate of sale. What it’s telling us is, at the current rate of sales, we have enough Single Family Homes on the market to last 2.8 months. Two years ago, the number was hovering at about 6 months. That’s a tremendous improvement!
Interest rates have stabilized at about 4.3% – up from a low in May of about 3.4%. As I said, they’ve ‘stabilized’ there, but we do expect them to continue a slow rise through next year, probably settling in in the 6% range. Translation: If you’re thinking about buying, this is not the time to hesitate! Give us a call today and let’s get started!