Podcast - January 6, 2022
Transcribed Podcast:
Tom Whalen: I'm Tom Whalen. I'm Jay Day and the Day Home Team of Real Estate Team's. First real estate broadcast of 2023.
Jay Day: Know know it's at least it's not that 2022 and I don't know, I'm still so shocked about how quickly time goes by
Tom Whalen: New year, man, I've already messed up. I'm not writing it, but I've had to delete that too and put a three in a couple times already. So where do we stand in the real estate industry with the best in the business?
Jay Day: Yeah, let's talk about some statistics because we took a little bit of a hiatus for the holidays. Took a little bit of time off for Christmas, so let's get back into it and talk more details. Now the statistics I was providing before were good, but we've actually tweaked what we're going to be talking about and going over. So it's going to be a little more detailed than we had before and I think it'll be really interesting. So the first round we're going to talk about Frederick County since we we're located here in Frederick. Let's talk about Frederick County Maryland. The first thing coming soon. Listings, there are 20 of those coming on. The last time we chatted, which was early December there were 21 homes. The median price for coming soon listings in Frederick County is 4 87. Four 50 active homes. We have 194. The last time we chatted we had 216.
The median price right now for homes that are active in Frederick County is $431,995. When we talked about it last, it was 4399 under contract we have 173 homes under contract. The last time we chatted we had 265. So that number has dropped dramatically. The median list price at the time of the contract was $395,000 and when we talked about it last, it was $415,000. Now this is an interesting number and we talked about it in the past and we stopped talking about it, but I think it's really relevant and important to talk about here. Homes that have been taken off the market, people that gave up selling their homes In the last 30 days, 149 people in Frederick County took their homes off the market. Their median price was $450,000 and the median days on market was 29. So they gave up in just 29 days, which is sort of shocking. It's not a whole lot of time to really test what's going on.
Tom Whalen: Do you expect people, do you expect a big burst here of energy in the new year of people saying, is the phone going to ring a lot here people one to put their homes on a market?
Jay Day: I'll tell you, we have been seeing a fair amount of uptick of people that are interested in buying. I mean, we had some of our team members who were getting homes under contract the week of Christmas. We had stuff settling, we had stuff settling before New Year's. We had new listings go on the market. So the activity is there, it's just not the chaotic pace that it was before. And what we're really seeing is those people that were, I don't want to, I guess I'll put it this way, the greedy sellers, the ones that wanted to get some crazy numbers, that's just not the way that it is anymore. You can't push that envelope because with the interest rate changes, with everything that's going on with home, staying on the market a little bit longer, we're not seeing the crazy bidding wars for the most part.
We are still seeing some multiple offers in certain situations just not what we were expecting or what we've been used to is what I would say. Now, one of the things I wanted to talk about was the homes that are active have an average of days on market in Frederick County is 42. Now, of those 194 active listings, 79 of them have done a price reduction. That is 64% of the inventory have done price reductions. And those homes that have price reductions done, their median price is $429,900 with 70 days on the market. So those people that have had their home on the market a little bit longer and they've come down and priced a bit. Now the homes that went under a contract, we talked about that. It was 173 homes of those were on the market for only 20 days. Now of those 54 of them actually reduced their price before they went under contract.
So 31% of the people had a price reduction and the median price for homes that went under contract was $472,450. And like I said, it's really interesting to see how that's sort of panning out. Now, sold homes, are an important number. What actually worked in the last 30 days in Frederick County was 224 the prior month we had 240, but 224 is still a solid number of homes that closed for the month of December. I think so because when you look at it, there are homes that were going under contract around Thanksgiving around that time. And a lot of people do get distracted. I mean I talked about it, you and I even took a break from the podcast for a bit. There's so much that goes on that you don't have time to do everything. And the one thing you don't want to do or most people try to avoid doing unless it's necessary, is going through a real estate transaction when you've got the holidays, there's, it's a whole lot of
Tom Whalen: <laugh>. That makes sense to me. There are a lot of demands put on people during the holidays.
Jay Day: Oh yeah. So this is a stat that I haven't gotten into before, but I think is important. Frederick County sold, we talked about there was 224 of them now of those 224, 86 of them sold above asking price, 73 of those sold for below asking price, and 65 sold at list price. So what's interesting, and we've talked about this before, you have some people that are pushing in the envelope and obviously those people are starting to have to do reductions as we talked about. 64% of the homes right now have had a price reduction. Now the smart process, and in my opinion, well I think it's smart, but we leave it up to all of our sellers, your price at a little below market value and you're going to end up selling it for more. And you're going to have multiple offers. As I said, we had 86 homes that sold for more than what they were listed at. That's still another good number, it's just a different strategy.
Tom Whalen: How does a customer feel about that when you say, look, here's what we're going to do, here's our strategy, it's a proven strategy.
Jay Day: Well, we tell them, here are all of your options. Here's what happens with this strategy. And it's funny because when we talk about that, we don't talk about it hypothetically. We give real statistics and that's what sort of made me realize maybe some of these stats are things we want to give because would you have thought, honestly when I tell you 79 I'm sorry, 79, people had to reduce their home price, which is 64% of the inventory. However, there's still 86 that's sold for over and people are like, so we say, you know, could price it high and then you're going to have to do a reduction and it's going to take longer. Or based on the current market in Frederick County, we're seeing if you price it here, you have a pretty good percentage chance of selling it above asking and having multiple offers.
Tom Whalen: I would listen to you every time. Yes. But then I know you and I know you're the
Jay Day: Best. Yeah, I mean we had one that just came in this past week. It went on the market over the holiday weekend and we had multiple offers. I think it was five offers that came in and that was over the New Year. So, we priced it a little aggressively. We priced a little below market value and the seller's like, yeah, let's go for it. Because the worst case scenario is we put it out there and nobody buys it and then it's still not priced. It's the market that tells you what's going on. Now, one of the things that we hadn't seen in a long time that's coming back, and another percentage I wanna share with you guys is in the last 30 days in Frederick County, the homes that have sold where the seller gave closing help, we've talked, there's been no closing help at all. For the longest with Covid, people were paying over, there were no concessions, and nothing was happening. Now we're in a position, 48% of the homes are sold in the last 30 days in Frederick County, and the seller had to give the buyer closing help. That's almost half of all the sales had closing help.
Tom Whalen: Explain what that means to a layperson.
Jay Day: So if you're a buyer and you're going to have closing costs, you're going to have transfer recordation fees, you're going to have all these different costs that come up back in. Not as long as six months ago you did not consider asking the seller to pay any closing help. It just wasn't happening. If anything you were paying over, you were guaranteed more money than what the house appraised for. Now, according to the real stats, again, this isn't some fictitious number, some national number, 48% of the homes that sold in the last 30 days in Frederick County. If you were a buyer, you were able to get closing help. So let's talk about something in a real way cuz some buyers are like, why in the world would I buy something right now if the interest rates are higher? Well, think about it this way.
If the interest rates were higher now, which they are, but you were having to pay over, you were having to pay more money than the house even appraised for and you weren't getting closing help, but now you have an almost 50% chance of getting closing help. And realistically, the homes are not selling. When we look at it, 64% of the homes that are on the market have done a price reduction, meaning you have less than a half chance of having to pay over asking. It sort of sets up a good environment for a buyer to be able to take advantage of these things because if they were paying $20,000 over asking and then all closing costs, that's real cash that they're losing. They're having to front that now where in the past where now they can actually get the seller to help out with a little bit of that. Does that make sense?
Tom Whalen: All it means to me is to call Jay and the day home team. If you have any questions on this, this changes every podcast.
Jay Day: It does every podcast.
Tom Whalen: These stats are different
Jay Day: And I'm not going to give all the details of all the other counties. I'm going to give a quick overview, of just some of the big-picture items that are happening. So Carroll County, we're at 137 homes that are active down from 166, so it's down a little bit. The median price on those is $429,000. The last time we chatted it was $437,000. So the prices are coming down a little bit and as far as what they're being marketed as in Carroll County, 121 contracts, we were 139 before. That's still a very solid number. The median price for that has not changed at all. For the homes that went under contract, 54 people in Carroll County ended up pulling their homes off the market. Now, the median price was $599,900, and 70 days on the market. So those were the higher price homes for Carroll County. Those people might have realized, hey, right now is just not the time to sell.
So they've sort of gone on the weight. The weight side sold 98, sold in the last 30 days of the 98 that sold 41% of them in Carroll County gave buyer closing help. Wow. So the seller gave closing help to the buyer. Washington County. We are down a little bit with an active inventory. We went from 148 to 135. Again, the sales price, the advertised sales prices adjusted a little bit from 294 to 287. Five contracts are down from 144 to 17. Again, nothing unusual for this time of year that just happens. 62 homes off the market. The average price or the median price for those was three 19. Nine was 74 days. Sold 101 down from 125. Again, still not a bad number. The median sold price was $269, 900. Now in Washington county, only 39% of sellers gave closing help to a buyer. So you know, have higher odds in Frederick County than Carroll, than Washington of getting seller contribution.
Now, Jefferson County, go over to West Virginia, we're at 85 homes we were at 97. So the inventory has dropped a little bit for what's available in Jefferson County. Contracts were fairly steady. They went from 58 to 53 not a big thing there. 21 homes have taken off the market there. They had their median days on market for the ones that were removed were 89 days. So they gave it like three months to sell. Sold went from 51 to 42. Again, nothing of major concern there. The neat thing for sold was the average sold PRI or the median sold price back in December was three 15. And the median sold price went up in the last 30 days to $346,188 and sold homes, went off the market in 16 days. Now in Jefferson County, 34% of the sellers had to give help to a buyer closing help. We go over to Berkeley County, we are at a hundred, we're down from 188 to 160 homes that are available. Contracts were 141. We dropped down to 129, 50 people took their homes off the market in the last 30 days sold, we went from 124 to 195. And realistically, the close price went from $252,450 to $254,900. So it had a tiny little tick-up. Now 53% of the sellers had to give closing help to buyers in Berkeley County over the last
Tom Whalen: 30 days. Has are these closing costs? Is this state-to-state? Yes. Or is this pretty much a national thing or are these laws different?
Jay Day: Well, it costs differently. Maryland is more expensive. West Virginia is probably the lowest amount of closing help. And what I plan on doing in our next not the next podcast, but the next time I run the stats, I'm going to put the stats in there that'll give you the average of what closing help to expect based on what actually sold in the last 30 days. So we'll be drilling down and saying, okay, even though it was 53% in Berkeley County, maybe the number is $3,000 and maybe in Carroll County it's $8,000. So we'll get into those on the next one. It
Tom Whalen: Was the significant change in my book.
Jay Day: Oh yeah. And then we'll close out with Pennsylvania, Adams County. We had 95 homes on the market last month. Now we're at 91. So sitting there right close the median price was $275, 000 now it's $274,900. Again, pretty much the same contract went from 95 to 75 off the market. 34 people took their homes off the market and sold them. This was a big drop, 98 to 68. But the good thing there was the prior month, the median sold price was $224,900. In the last 30 days, it went up to $249,948. So an increase in price in Adams County and only 16% of the homes that sold had the sellers have to give closing help. So that's the lowest number we've had so far. And now we'll close out with Franklin. We had 183 active, now we're at 153. The contract went from 180 to 129. People took their homes off the market sold went from 169 to 20.
Another important stat here is the sold price, the median sold price was unchanged, $235,000. And then we go and look at the magic number of how many people in Franklin County got closing help from the seller. And that was 32%. So even just going over these numbers, it's so different. That's why we really feel it's important to go over these at least once a month, if not twice a month because we do keep our pulse on the market. We do cover a broad area. However, we also specialize in those areas because we know what's going on. We don't talk in hyperbole, we don't make things up, we don't talk in generalizations. We give you the details and we're digging into this on a regular basis. And this is information that we go over with our sellers to explain to them, Hey, here's your option.
And Tom, you mentioned, what do we tell people to do? We don't tell them anything specific to do. We say here are different strategies and people may like different strategies for different reasons. But the thing is, if I'm talking to you about selling your house, and I tell you, let's say I think your house is worth four 50 and I tell you, hey, if you listed at $445,000, we may get it up to $455,000. But you say, well if it's sell for $455,000, I wanna list it for $455,000. So I'll explain what can happen each situation. And if you decide to go $455,000, that's fine. But we've had that conversation of what to expect and realize you may have to do a reduction. And then when I come to you and say, Hey, based on what's going on, all these other homes are selling, your still hasn't.
It looks like that 455 number is not going to happen. Here's where we are now. So you're not surprised cuz I think the thing that I hear when we end up listing homes with people that had agents before is that the agents did not explain to them or give them options before. They did not say, if this happens, if we go this route, this could happen. If we go this route, this could happen. I think it's just a communication and I don't think it's just a basic, they're afraid to have the conversation all the time. I think a lot of it is there's a lot of new people and there's realistically, most salespeople are not statistic driven. To me, the numbers don't lie. And we've done this forever. We would sit down with a buyer and they would say, well, I'm going to need closing help.
I'm going to need this. So what we would do is say, all right, well what area do you wanna be in? Okay, you wanna be in Lake Linganore? And we meet them in the office, we pull everything up, live with them and say, look at this. So 40 homes sold and of the 41 people got closing help. So your odds of getting closing help for pretty much, because the data will not lie to you if you look at it. And like I said, we love to do it real-time with people so we can show them, or we'll say, Hey, you wanna be in Lake Linganore, great here's all the stuff that's sold. And when we look at these, look of the 40, 38 of them sold for over price. So the odds are that you're going to have to pay more than what the list price is. If you want to get a home in this area at this time, is that what you know?
Tom Whalen: Sure. No, I would appreciate that.
Jay Day: Yeah, it's the honesty. I mean it's
Tom Whalen: Surprises. Surprises trigger people. Oh
Jay Day: Yeah. And we always tell, I mean, our people are like, you gave me the options. And we're like, yeah. And sometimes you could try that strategy of pricing a little bit lower and it still doesn't sell. So we tell them this is a potential strategy that could work. But in our worst-case scenario, let's say we price it a little low, we get 30 people through the house in a week and nobody writes. Then we know we missed the mark. But you won't wonder what my house is sold for more. Because if it's nobody's writing on it at that price, then we're not priced and positioned properly at the current time.
Tom Whalen: Got a Home of the Week
Jay Day: Week. I do. This one just hit the market. 28 West Church Street in Williamsport is listed for $248,000. I'll give you some details about this. It's had the convenience of a one-level home, an open-concept living. It's a well cared four three-bed, two-bath rancher. The front porch greets you. Once you're inside, you have a living room and dining room area that features a vaulted ceiling, laminate wood floors, and plenty of natural light. Proceed to the kitchen, which offers tile, floorings, stainless steel appliances, and a pantry. Down the hall, you'll find the primary suite along with two additional bedrooms and a full hall bath. The rear deck is nicely sized and was recently restained with both an attached and detached garage as well as a front and rear driveway. Parking's never an issue here. Minutes from West Virginia, local amenities, parks, and the Potomac River. This is home and area. Have a lot to offer. Again, this one's brand new on the market, $248,000. Go to wfre.com. Look up Tom and Jay's real estate podcast. Or you can even go to WFRE or our Facebook page and you'll see the home of the week. If you like what you see, click on the button, schedule a tour, and one of our agents will get you in to see the home today.
Tom Whalen: Jay Day and the Day Home Team of Real Estate Teams Weekly Real Estate podcast. Thank you for listening. Tell your friends all about it
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