Summary
Inventory
Year-over-year condo inventories had been declining for nearly a decade since the recession. In 2018, however, inventory levels briefly lifted as developers flooded the market with newly completed upscale condos. Available listings dropped back off in 2019 and continued to decline heading into 2020. The arrival of Covid in March temporarily shut down both new listing and sales activity. Since the reopening of real estate in May, new pending and sales activity have continued to outpace new listings and by November, listing levels were down more than 50% from last year and they continue to decline.
Closed Sales
Despite the 45-day shutdown, through October, YTD closed sales are the second highest they’ve been in the past six years and the gap between last year and this year is rapidly closing as recent new pendings and closed sales continue to outpace last year’s numbers. Since August, pendings have been up 31% compared to last year. In the first two weeks of November, the closed sales gap narrowed from 13% to 8%.
Prices and Values
Heading into November, YOY average sale price was up $14k. That’s a 6% increase over last year and the number continues to quickly rise as entry and mid-priced inventory is depleted and recent sales tend to involve more upper-end properties. As seen in the bottom table, this year’s increase in average sale price is primarily the result of the proportional change in the mix of price ranges have been selling-—over-$350k sales are up 26% while all sales in all other price ranges have declined. Within each price range, YTD price per square foot dropped. Values were trending up at the beginning of the year. They dipped during the spring shutdown. They bounced back quickly in June before leveling through the third quarter.
Northwest Michigan 5-County SF/Condo YTD Summary
January 1 – March 31
