Happy St. Patty’s Month! It is March, and that tells us it is time to look back over February to see how the market ended up last month. In the news, the treasury 10-year note started to creep up, so the interest rates have begun to increase. Typically, this causes buyers to react more quickly and I think we could have witnessed some of this reaction this past month. Let us look at Pitt County overall to see where we stand in the real estate market.
Last month 174 homes sold in Pitt County, on average we had a total of 183 active listings, while we added a total of 212 new listings to the market. Now remember, with this hotter market for sellers these new listings typically do not last long if they are indeed priced correctly.
Pulling data today (March 2nd), we have 478 homes pending in Pitt County. These numbers are expected to close anywhere from 30-60 days out. In addition, now we only have 125 active properties listed for sale. So, from last month, now we have a defect of 58 homes.
Also, look at the listing prices from last month. If you have been paying attention to the news, prices for material especially in the new construction have gone tremendously higher. I believe lumber alone is 20% higher and concrete they say may be 40% higher. So, I’m not sure whether to speculate if this increase is to do with new construction or if it has to do with higher priced homes re-entering the market.
So, if I pull the data for the new construction homes under contract and currently active on market, new construction accounts for 21% of the inventory total. Therefore, I’m going to speculate that the costs are starting to reflect in that of the material goods and will begin to reflect for the market overall.
Since we have already spoke that today we only have 125 active homes in inventory, you can note that absorption rates have truly dropped below the one-month market to around 24 days-worth of inventory left. These numbers are insane to me, I have never once witnessed a market as tight as this in Pitt County. Sold to list ratio, is about 99.4% on the market overall. However, all the homes I have listed have all been in multiple offer scenarios, so you must be ready to truly play hard ball to get the property you want.
Average days on market right now sits at 21 overall. I do not focus on this figure as much as I do the median days on market which right now is 4. Why is that number high, especially when hearing from people, “Oh, I sold my house within hours”? Well, it takes about 3-6 hours for the offers to start rolling in, then sellers typically ask for all offers a day or two after listing to get their highest potential. So, to sellers, yes, they knew about the offers within a day. However, the market looks at the moment when the money exchange and initial paperwork are completed. Therefore, if you are a buyer, it is CRITICAL to be ready the moment you know it is the potential home for you. When I say ready, have that pre-qualification in hand and your agent ready to submit any offer at a fair price.
The market talks, and right now it is talking to sellers. Sellers are dictating how they are accepting offers and the terms they are accepting offers on. If we look at Pitt County this time last year, we had double the amount of inventory we have today! As we already mentioned, list prices are higher across the board given the material costs of goods. Median list price is at $268K over last year at $227K.
Now it all comes down to average sold prices truly, right? Well, again as list prices move up, so are we seeing these Sold Prices moving up just as quickly! You can see the Avg sold and Median sold are rather close in value than over the previous year. Only a $10,000 value difference, and it must do a lot with the fact that most homes selling are truly in the $230-180 value range. Seems to me that is where most of our inventory levels are. Plus, look how much it’s increased over this time last year. So next year, where will you be? Will you be in a rental situation complaining how you didn’t buy when the market was better? I do not see the Pitt County Market slowing down anytime soon, and I definitely do not see values dropping either.
Now, let’s look at Greenville, NC and Winterville, NC respectfully!
So for Greenville and Winterville, I’m going to do something a bit differently and break down the sold properties by price points. I often do this as we do with Pitt County overall, however with the striking low amounts of inventory, I feel this information is valuable to both sellers and buyers. So here is the chart for Greenville:
As mentioned last month, the most inventory is moving under the $350,000 range. Here, we can see that clearly and see that even correlates to the pending/future closings. You can also see that most of the activity overall though truly is around the 150K-250K mark. So, does this also line up with Winterville?
Yes, it does, although Winterville has a smaller amount of inventory. Yet, you can see that the activity is truly Sold around the 150k-250k Mark. Although, look at how many 250-299K homes are pending to close soon in Winterville. It’s going to push that market upwards. Most of those are new construction, I’ve already had my own look. Those numbers will be reflecting in our data over the next two months as we pull more comparable properties and data.
Therefore overall, our market is moving up as supply is dwindling. Interest rates may be creeping up slightly, however I do not see our market in Greenville or Winterville taking any sort of hits. We do not have the supply, if anything some buyers would suggest we could use a hit. However, the number of renters and relocations taking place to our area suggest that maybe nationally they’ll be a hit but locally we may stay smooth sailings ahead.
Needing to Buy or Sell in Eastern, North Carolina. Please consider giving me a call and let me earn your right to be YourNCAgent. I’d love to share more in-depth analysis on what you could be earning by selling or what you may be obtaining by buying your next home with me!
