DANE COUNTY MARKET
Menu
The latest news about the real estate market this holiday season.
Happy holidays! Thank you for putting your trust in our team. I also want to give you a quick update on what’s happening in the market. There are so many doom and gloom headlines. While they might reflect some parts of the country, real estate markets are very local. Even from one city to another nearby, there can be vast differences.
Right now, homes are still selling, however, the supply of available houses is still low. We have half a month of active inventory. Even if you include the listings with accepted offers, we still only have one month’s supply. A balanced market would have about six months of inventory, so this is still a seller’s market. If you’re a buyer right now, you’ll benefit from not much competition. Only serious buyers want to go look at houses when the weather is like this.
This may be a busy time of year, but we are always here to help you and answer any questions you may have. Give us a call or reply to this email; we’d love to help you. In case we don’t hear from you until 2023, have a happy New Year!
Here is everything you need to know about the Dane County market in August.
What is happening with the Dane County market? Things are changing in our local real estate, and we have the latest data for you here today.
In our entire market, we’ve seen sales decrease for the seventh consecutive month by 6%. In Dane County specifically, we’re down by 7%. This has helped to stabilize prices in the county, which are holding steady at just below $400,000. That’s 12.6% higher than it was in 2021. Year to date, the average price is $428,488—an increase of 10.2%.
While these prices have been decreasing, inventory is still a pressure point. Over the last year, inventory has decreased. In Dane County alone, we’ve seen a decrease of 25% in new listings from August 2021 to now. From January 2021 through today, available inventory has decreased more than 11%. We’re seeing a low availability of only about a month of inventory across Dane County. In contrast, we’d expect to see about six months of available inventory in a balanced market. This implies that we are still in a great seller’s market.
Interest rates have also been increasing.* Today, we’re sitting at 6.875% for a 30-year fixed mortgage—quite high compared to our previous rates of just under 3%.
The average number of days on the market was about 15 instead of the 14 days in August 2021. We think this trend will continue, with properties staying on the market longer.
Thinking about buying or selling and need my help? Please don’t hesitate to give me a call or email. I’d be happy to answer any questions.
* Note: Interest rates have subsided to 6.5%. Interest rates are volatile and since shooting we have seen a slight decrease.
Looking to sell a Dane County home? Get a FREE home value report here
Today’s Madison market update is geared toward what sellers need to know.
Today I’m discussing what happened in our Madison area real estate market in 2021. I’ll also talk about how that affects our current market and what it will mean if you’re considering selling this year. Based on current conditions and what’s likely to come, now may be the best time to sell your house, and today I’ll explain why.
Feel free to watch the full message above, or use these timestamps that will direct you to various points in the video:
0:00 — Introduction to today’s topic
0:58 — Number of homes on the market
2:05 — What prices are doing right now
2:35 — What interest rates are doing right now
3:03 — What to expect from the second-home market
3:58 — What all this means for you
4:34 — Wrapping up today’s topic
If you’re ready to get the selling process rolling or have any questions, give me a call or send an email. I would love to be your real estate resource.
Here’s a breakdown of the latest stats and trends in Madison real estate.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Check out the new app now!
Today I have a brief market update covering a few key stats and a few surprising trends.
Let’s start with inventory levels. We haven’t seen them this low in quite some time. At the end of October, we had fewer homes for sale than we’ve had in over a decade.
On our home search site, you can get stats for each market we cover from Middleton to Verona. For the purposes of this video, we’ll focus on the latest numbers for Madison.
Currently, there are only 377 active listings, and 223 of them are pending. That means there are just 154 homes available for purchase right now, which equals 0.49 months of inventory. For reference, a balanced market has six months’ worth of inventory. The average days on market of 52 is slightly misleading because there are some properties on the market that are overpriced and causing that number to jump. The average days on market for sold properties in Madison is just 21, and the median days on market is just six.
As for home prices in Madison, the average sale price over the last 12 months is $356,000, and the median sale price is $330,000. With low inventory and strong demand, this is a great market to sell in. The low interest rates make buying a home a strong move as well.
If you have any questions about the market, these stats, or anything else related to real estate, don’t hesitate to reach out via phone or email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Here is what’s going on in our local and national housing markets.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Check out the new app now!
The National Association of Realtors sees the surge in home prices that we’ve experienced over the last year as an anomaly that was driven by pent-up demand due to the pandemic and low interest rates. Now that things are starting to settle down again, we’re seeing last year’s trends ease as well. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “The housing sector is clearly settling down. Home sales are trying to return to a normal equilibrium after that big surge we saw last year.”
Yun further explained, “Sales slipped a bit in August as prices rose nationwide. Potential buyers are out and about searching but much more measured about their financial limits and simply waiting for more inventory.” Newly constructed home sales are up 1.5% from August while existing home sales dropped by 2%. Both figures are still higher than their pre-pandemic counterparts.
The median price of a home nationally now sits right at $375,000. That’s an astounding appreciation of 15% from last year. The average days on market is 17 days. These quick sales are also due to the continued lack of inventory. A healthy market should have six months of inventory, but right now we have 2.6 months. That’s down 1.5% from July and 13.4% from this time last year.
Here in Dane County over the last 30 days, we’ve had a 16-day turnaround from when a home goes active on the market to when it goes under contract. The median price of $350,000 has remained pretty constant over the last few months.
BCA Research puts it like this:
“While we expect growth momentum to ease, temporary forces due to the Delta variant accentuated the moderation in activity between August and September. The reports note that health concerns are weighing on the service sector. Similarly, labor supply and material shortages are restraining manufacturing output and pushing up the backlog of work. Meanwhile, supply chain disruptions and rising transportation costs are raising price pressures. Higher input costs are being transferred to clients in the form of an increase in output prices.”
All of these factors are coming together to hurt affordability. Despite the market starting to cool off, the percentage of buyers who were buying for the first time dropped to 29%, a low we haven’t seen since January of 2019. However, economists are hopeful that we’ll see more inventory reach the market soon. The chief economist at Keller Williams, Ruben Gonzalez, said, “Overall, we think home sales will remain strong going into next year, but we should see inventory levels continue to slowly trend toward more normal levels and home price appreciation begin to slow over time.”
If you’re thinking about selling your home, you haven’t missed your chance. This is still a seller’s market, and you can net a great profit from your house.
Enter your address here to instantly calculate your home’s value.
If you’d like something a little more concrete flavored by local data and trends, or if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me directly at (608) 212-5743.
Here are the trends we’re seeing in our local and national housing markets.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Check out the new app now!
In today’s market update, we’ll be going over the changes we’ve seen recently in both our national and local markets.
Throughout the country, home prices have been accelerating due to the combination of fierce buyer competition and low home inventory. However, sales have declined somewhat over the past few months. Locally, we’ve seen a 2.2% year-to-year increase in sales in Dane County, with a 12.9% increase in median home prices. In other words, median home prices rose from $310,000 to $350,000 in a year.
Experts believe that price growth will slow down by the end of summer as more homes begin hitting the market.
There’s an affordability issue for many first-time homebuyers. Though our current low interest rates help keep things a little more affordable, the cost of buying a home is simply too much for many. Around half of the homes sold are still selling for more than their listing price—locally, they sell for around 102% of the list price. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median sales price for existing homes rose 23.4% from June 2020 to June 2021.
Fortunately, experts believe that price growth will slow down by the end of summer as more homes begin hitting the market. However, a broad decline in prices is highly unlikely. This month, the total market supply has increased, and we’ve also seen a shift in listing activity. For the first time since January 2021, the number of sales is higher than the number of new listings. This may be an anomaly, but some believe it’s due to news of the COVID-19 delta variant.
The national market is currently being driven by three key factors. First, millennials—the country’s largest generation—are enlarging their families and buying homes. Next, mortgage rates have been falling, and low rates drive home buying activity. Finally, the pandemic has caused many to move out of the city and into more suburban environments where they can work from home.
For the fifth consecutive week, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have been below 3%. Meanwhile, 15-year rates have hit record lows. Home builders are capping sales to manage their costs and ensure they don’t promise more homes than they can actually build.
If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home and would like to learn more about our current market, feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Here’s why we’re not in a real estate bubble.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Check out the new app now!
Home prices across the U.S. are swelling, and many anxious buyers and sellers are worried about a market crash. Today’s market, however, bears little resemblance to the one that led to the crisis of 2008.
Market watchers note that the median sale price was $313,000 in February, which was a 16% increase compared to the year before, but whatever happens at the end of this frenzy likely won’t simulate what happened during the last bubble. Nationwide, homes are selling in about 20 days on average. The average for 30-year fixed mortgages, meanwhile, is still near a record low. Things feel pretty hectic right now, but the market will adjust to a more natural ebb and flow we see in typical market cycles.
Prices aren’t expected to fall anytime soon, and ever since the last market crash, we’ve seen years of continuous underbuilding as far as new construction goes. This is one of the main reasons the country is seeing a housing shortage. According to the National Association of Realtors, home supply is down 28% compared to a year ago. Growing demand and little supply make a perfect combination for rising prices.
Whatever happens at the end of this frenzy likely won’t simulate what happened during the last bubble.
If you’re a seller and you price your home correctly, you’ll likely get a slew of offers. What do you do at that point, though? Hopefully you have a great agent to help you sort through the terms of each offer. Which are paying cash and which are using financing? What are the contingencies of each offer? Are any of them waiving the appraisal or inspection? How do you compare apples to apples and review everything?
There are plenty of great agents out there who can help you, myself included. If you give me a call, I’d be happy to show you what my team and I can do to help you sell your home on your terms and in the time frame you desire.
Also, if you’re interested in entering a raffle to win a Menards gift card, all you have to do is reply to the email that led you to this blog and state your intentions. I’ll announce the winner on my next video, so stay tuned!
Here’s what else the latest market numbers show.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Check out the new app now!
The latest reports for our February real estate market are in, so today we’ll be going over what the numbers mean for buyers and sellers in Madison and Dane counties.
Compared to the previous year in Dane County, we saw a 4.6% increase in year-to-date sales through February. Over the same period, year-to-date prices have increased by 12.6%. Keep in mind that around this time last year, we were starting to move into the COVID-19 pandemic and saw the number of listings decrease. We’ve been at incredibly low inventory levels ever since.
Comparing this February to last February shows that Dane County prices are up 13.9%, but the number of sales has dropped by 1.8%. I predict we’ll see some interesting year-to-year numbers for March, as that’s when everyone pulled their house off the market last year. This year’s numbers will probably blow last year’s out of the water, at least initially.
We currently have 1,055 active listings in Dane County, but you may not be seeing the true inventory levels on aggregators like Zillow. Additionally, many of these homes already have accepted offers. So at the moment of this recording, there are really only 400 active listings in Dane County.
This year’s numbers will probably blow last year’s out of the water, at least initially.
There were 7,281 sales in the last year, and if we use the 1,055 number to calculate our supply, we see that we have 1.74 months’ worth of inventory. However, what’s truly available is much lower than that—in fact, it’s closer to 0.6 month’s worth.
In Madison County, there are 497 active listings; however, only 170 don’t have an accepted offer. Using the larger number gives us 1.45 months’ worth of inventory, but the smaller number puts us under a half-month of supply. You can see all these numbers with real-time updates using our online tool—just scroll down to the bottom and sign up to access the information.
If you have any questions or would like more information about buying or selling a home, feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Don’t let anyone fool you—now is a good time to put your home on the market in Dane County.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Now that we’re well into fall and getting closer to winter, I want to touch base with you about a couple of important points.
First, as Thanksgiving approaches, I want to thank my past and current clients and anyone who’s sent a referral our way.
When it comes to our Dane County market, if we look at the year-over-year numbers from last October, sales have dropped 3.9%, but the median price has risen 5.9% and currently stands at $295,000. This makes sense when you look at our overall inventory, which has decreased 4.3% and stands at 2.2 months.
Even now in November, we’re seeing buyers compete for homes. In fact, the number of purchased mortgage applications has risen 15% since October of 2018. This also makes sense when you consider that the average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is just 3.78%.
This leads me to my next point: It’s a misconception that homes don’t sell during the winter months. Right now, we’re working with a bunch of buyers that we don’t have inventory for, and this isn’t a problem that’s unique to just my team—it’s happening all across our area. This means if you’re thinking about selling your home, some buyers will match with your home if you list it now.
“
It’s a misconception that homes don’t sell during the winter months.
”
It makes sense on paper to wait until spring to list, but in the $200,000 to $350,000 price range (where the bulk of the sales in our market occur), there are just 1.6 months of inventory. Below that, inventory is even lower. Even in the $500,000+ range, inventory stands at 4.7 months, which is still a seller’s market.
So keep these numbers in mind as we approach the winter months. If you have any more questions about our market or you’d like to list your home soon, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you.
What is happening in the residential real estate markets for Madison, WI and Dane County? Find out in today’s market update.
Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report.
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.
Currently, we’re in a seller’s market, and we have been for quite awhile. In the greater Madison area, we have less than one month’s supply of homes available for sale. In Dane County, we have a little less than 1.5 months of supply.
But how does being in a seller’s market affect property values? Typically, a low supply of homes for sale does put upward pressure on pricing. However, since we’re only in February, most sellers haven’t turned their listings loose on the market yet. Most sellers think that the ideal time to list is in May or June, so we expect much more inventory to appear on the market then, normalizing it a little. At the same time, we also expect more buyers to enter the market then, as well.
What do interest rates look like? As of the time this video was made, Freddie Mac shows that we’re at 4.39% for a 30-year fixed loan. At 1:50 in the video above, you can see a chart from Freddie Mac that shows interest rate trends over the last year. Rates spiked last November, climbing near to 5%, but trended back down toward the end of the year. Freddie Mac forecasts rates to climb back up to around 4.7% this year, and by the end of the year, they expect rates to reach around 4.9%.
At 2:32 in the video, you can see another chart that tracks interest rates back to the late 1970s. The early 80s were painful for all consumers in the market, as rates climbed well past 15%. Looking at this puts our current rate environment in perspective; even though we’re now higher than we have been in the past, by no means are we in a high-rate environment. We’ve been somewhat spoiled.
So what does this all mean for buyers and sellers?
For sellers, our low inventory spells great opportunity for your homes to get sold. Given the crazy winter weather we’ve been having, most of the buyers currently in the market are serious about purchasing a home. That’s why it’s a good idea to get your home on the market sooner than later; data shows that March, April, and May are the months with the highest number of accepted offers on homes. Buyers will start looking for homes soon, if they haven’t already begun browsing online.
“
“
Even though interest rates are now higher than they have been in the past, by no means are we in a high-rate environment.
”
For buyers, interest rates are still low at the moment. However, my friends in the mortgage business tell me that a 1% increase in interest rates will raise your monthly payments by about 10%. Since mortgage rates are expected to increase this year, now is a great time to purchase a home. Additionally, if you begin searching now, you won’t have to compete with other buyers for a home quite as heavily as you might later this spring.
As always, if you have any questions about the real estate market or how current trends relate to your specific situation, feel free to reach out to us. We’re here to help.
