December 2018 Real Estate Market Update

By Chad & Sara Huebener

Chad and Sara are Executive Circle sales associates at Edina Realty and are committed to serving clients in a manner that is ethical and respects confidentiality without giving up the aggressiveness and tenacity it takes to get homes sold.

Let’s jump right into the numbers, starting by comparing the stats from Scott County from December 2018 to December 2017.

For the price range at and under $250,000, the market was extremely hot in 2018; homes were flying off the market right and left, selling very quickly. Last year at this time, we had 48 active listings; this decreased in 2018 to 24 active listings. Considering that 2018 was such a low-inventory year, that’s a startling number—we’re down almost 100% in inventory at that price point.

The price range between $250,000 and $400,000 was also very hot in 2018 for move-up buyers and sellers. In 2017, this range saw 172 active listings, compared to 2018’s 126. That’s about a 15% decrease, signaling a lot of activity. Part of the reason that inventory is slightly higher in this price point is that there is a lot of new construction inventory. Of the current 126 active listings, 58 of those are new construction, which is almost half the market.

For the $400,000 to $600,000 range, which is also a popular price point in Scott County due to new construction, there were 147 active listings on the market in 2017. As of 2018, there are 152 active listings, constituting around a 5% increase. Here, 61% of the active listings are new construction.

In the price point above $600,000, there were 120 active listings in 2017, and 79 this year. That’s a 50% drop, and a third of that inventory is new construction.

 We continue to see contingent offers, and considering the season we’re in, we’ve actually seen a relatively busy end of December. We have been keeping an eye on the political climate; right now, interest rates have held pretty steady, and we don’t expect any major changes to those at the beginning of 2019, but one can never really know. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with inventory levels and the market in general as we head into the new year.

If you have any questions or ideas about topics for us to cover in future posts, absolutely feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you.