The predictions we see on the news are more about the country as a whole – the averages of all areas and it is true that most of the country is experiencing a slowdown , but there’s variations in how severe that is depending on the area. According to Zillow, the following cities will see the largest declines. Fairbanks Alaska down 4.6%. Not too far behind are Charleston, W.Va. (-4%) that’s Charleston in south West Virginia – not Charles Town here in the Eastern Panhandle; Lake Charles, La. (-3.8%); San Jose (3.6%); and Odessa, Texas (3.3%). I’ve seen other sites that say larger cities that saw the greatest price increases will also see price drops – places like Las Vegas, NV, Jacksonville, Fla, Phoenix AZ. Few others. Zillow has changed their housing market prediction – they’re now saying that U.S. house prices will climb just 2.4%. That’s down from the 7.8% they were predicting just a few months ago. That’s the average for the entire country so some cities will be on the negative side of that number – some on the positive.
So let’s look at what August numbers reveal for the 3 counties here in the Eastern Panhandle and see what we can deduce from that data. . The first indicator and the most important is the months of inventory – that number defines the type of market we’re in. Sellers, Buyers or Balanced. And guess what – August was still a seller’s market – just barely. Berkeley and Morgan shows 4 months of inventory – Jefferson 4.5. 5 is the tipping point where we go into a balanced market. And that number – months of inventory – is trending up for the last 3 months for Berkeley and Jefferson. It was trending up in Morgan but dropped pretty dramatically in August – not sure why that happened..
Next indicator – Days To Sell. And these are median instead of averages. An unusually high or low number can skew an average so median paints a more accurate picture I think. Berkeley & Jefferson 12 days to sell. Morgan 17 days. So all 3 counties saw a slight increase in how long it takes to sell a house – but it’s showing that homes are still selling pretty quickly.
Next indicator – Number of mortgage applications. And these are numbers for the entire country. They are from the National Bankers Association. Mortgage applications were up slightly beginning of August but mid August they dropped 2.3% and 1.2% toward the end of August. No surprise there with the rising interest rates. So there’s not as many buyers out there shopping for a house. Either they are knocked out of the market because they now can’t afford the higher payment or have decided to wait till interest rates come down.
Next indicator – Number of homes sold – this just shows market activity. If that is decreasing, The reason could be fewer buyers, fewer sellers or a combination of both. So to determine the cause you’d need to look other data that addresses supply vs demand. Things like months of inventory, days on market – things like that. Market Activity in Both Berkeley County and Jefferson has been trending down for the last few months. Morgan was trending down but had a jump in market activity in August.
So wrapping all this up. August numbers continued a trend of downward indicators – but only by slight numbers. There wasn’t a huge drop in things like days to sell or a huge rise in months of inventory – that number increased but not so much that it knocked us out of our seller’s market status – at least for August, we are still in a seller’s market but now bordering a balanced market. So for Berkeley & Jefferson, August pretty much continued what we’ve been seeing – a slow trend down. Morgan County on the other hand was a mixed bag in August. So it’s hard to say where they are headed. Median price was up in July – then down in August. But They had a big jump in number of sales and a big drop in months of inventory – from 6 to 4 so that pushed them into a sellers market for that one month. So for Morgan, we’ll have to see if that jump in sales was an anomaly or if someone discovered gold up there – I don’t know – I’m going with anomaly.
We are doing pretty good in the Eastern Panhandle. People want to move here – lots of them from nearby congested areas like the DC area. If you are selling you’ll be ok because home prices grew so much in the last few years, you’ll still come out very well – even though the price might be slightly lower than it would have been a few months ago. If you are thinking of selling we did a series of videos for sellers with some good information including advice on what to do if you want to try selling yourself without a realtor.
Here’s a link to those videos:
