What You Need To Know About Home Prices

What You Need To Know About Home Prices

Whether you’re looking to buy a home or condo in the Savannah area or you’re ready to sell a home or condo in the Savannah area, home prices are likely a topic of great interest to you. For this reason, a couple of new reports deserve a closer look.

First, ATTOM Data Solutions just released their U.S. Home Sales Report for the third quarter. Among the results, the data shows that the median home price has now surpassed its pre-recession peak and is at an all-time high. In fact, the median price in the third quarter hit $230,000 – which is 1 percent higher than its previous peak of $227,000 in 2005. But though that sounds like bad news for buyers, there may be more to the story. That’s because another recent report shows that – though home prices continue to rise – in the Savannah area and elsewhere – so does the number of price reductions. That means, more sellers are adjusting their price after originally listing their house.

Whether this is because home sellers have just priced their property too high to begin with or are in markets where prices may have peaked is debatable. However, 70 of the largest 100 metropolitan areas saw an increase in price reductions. Of course, home price trends can vary from one location to the next. For example, ATTOM’s chief economist, Darren Blomquist, points out that, while prices have hit new peaks in some markets, there are also still markets where there are a high number of distressed properties and opportunities for buyers looking for a bargain. More here.

Studies from the Savannah Multi-list Corporation Combined Residential Sales Report for Bryan County, Chatham County and Effingham County, From January 2011 thru August 2016 with the results calculated from approximate 44,000 listings, not including new construction showed the monthly active listing per month in August 2016 on average have been 3,300 per month.

The average number of days on the market to sell, from August of 2011 at 139 days has declined in August of 2016 to 91 days on average.

Results calculated from 631 listings, not including proposed new construction, show the sales volumes of the top 20 zip codes from August of 2016; the Savannah southside area zip code 31419 sales volume was the highest with $25,728,812, the Richmond Hill Bryan County area zip code 31324 came in second with an estimated sales volume of $22,729,730, and the third zip code was the downtown area zip code 31401 with a sales volume of $14,721,575.  The following seventeen zip codes may be seen on the chart below.

Based on the Savannah Multi-List Corporation Report, the Home Sales Price Per Square Foot Ratio for homes in the Bryan County, Chatham County and Effingham County from January 2011 thru August 2016 have continued to rise.  In August of 2011 the home sales price per square foot ratio for homes in these areas were $104 per sqft, in August of 2012 the prices dropped to $99 per sqft, the following August of 2013 we saw an increase in the Savannah and surrounding areas with $108 per sqft, prices continued to rise in 2015 at $116 per sqft and this year in 2016 we saw a larger gain at $124 per sqft on average.