Isn’t data beautiful? Over the past three years, there have been interesting developments in real estate. The First Multiple Listing Service, a Metro Atlanta MLS, makes real estate data available to its subscribing real estate agents.
More Showings Per Listing
The real estate market has increased overall in the number of homes for sale, and buyers are looking more often at the listings. The graph below shows an average of all homes at all prices for sale in the Atlanta Area. The red line represents new listings, and the blue line represents the number of showings per listing received. Does that mean that the buyer is more discerning, and shopping more at every price point? Not necessarily.
Perhaps this is not a completely accurate depiction of what is actually happening in the market. As previously discussed, there is currently an excess of higher price point homes being built, while there are not enough starter homes being built. These facts may be causing buyers to look even harder at homes they can actually afford on the market at the time. Combine this problem with our inflating student debt, and starter homes may be harder to qualify for Millennials.
Winters/Holidays Freeze everything
The graph below shows the median days on the market in orange, and the number of homes for sale in green. Each dip in green, or the number of homes for sale, corresponds with the first of the year in 2017, 2018, and 2019. While the number of homes decrease, the number of days on the market inversely increase. It seems as though almost everyone stops to enjoy the holidays every year.
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