May Market Update, April Statistics

The numbers are in — and the market is telling a story.
In this episode, we break down the May Market Update and dive into April statistics, trends, buyer activity, inventory levels, and what it all could mean moving forward.

Whether you’re thinking about buying, selling, investing, or just staying informed, this episode gives you a clear look at what’s happening in today’s market.

The living you podcast is a conversation about life, real estate, and the journey of living you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Once again, you are stuck with Rich and Jess on the Living You podcast for the next thirty summer minutes. How are you, Rich?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Doc. Ouch. Uh enjoying the enjoying the ride, hopefully. Anyway, that's that's what we hope to deliver a enjoyable listening/slash viewing experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Yes, happy to be stuck with you. Remember that song? That was an 80s hit.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

No, I don't. You don't? Random reference that I can't that I can't relate to.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Anyway, so I want to know, Rich, what is it like to live you in this world today on this happy May, almost Memorial Day weekend?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

We're cracking on into well into spring now. So Jess, I have a I have an actual question for you. I had a situation this morning. And I'm a I'm a parent. I have a I have a daughter. She's a high school freshman in high school, right? And I don't necessarily push a lot of responsibility or chores or jobs or like maybe I feel like this is a bigger topic than we really want to get into. But anyway, so I she does not have a pattern of like a lot of responsibility in my world. Um, you can judge me for that if you don't. That's if you want, that's fine. But her one of her only jobs is get up in the morning and get yourself on the bus, right? Can you can you do that? That's that's your number one thing. So so twice in the last several weeks, she's missed the bus. And so we've had a conversation about making can we, you know, can we be five minutes earlier? Can we whatever?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Wait, did she inherit lateness from dad?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Modify some things. So anyway, today, guess what? You know, she misses the bus again. And so, what happens when she misses the bus? I have to change my morning routine, drive her into school. It's a it's a pain, right? It's not the end of the world, but it's a nuisance and not something I enjoy when there is a clear uh operation that that would that would negate that. So uh so what was gonna happen today was I was going to end up driving into the town where her school is first to pick something up. My I was gonna get some contact lenses, and um, and I was gonna time it so that I could kind of not surprise pick her up, but at least pick her up from school and she wouldn't have to ride the bus home because she hates the bus home more because it's longer, she's hungry, tired, whatever. So that was gonna be my little, oh, I'm a cool dad, I'm a good dad. I will I will time it so I can pick the stuff up and pick her up from school and and the little nice thing. So this morning she misses the bus. I'm I'm a little bit not in the best mood, and I decide to not even bring it up, to not mention the possibility, and almost as a as a vindictive, like it's not punitive, it's not vindictive, but whatever it was, I decided in the moment to not mention the fact that hey, this thing that you hate later on today, I can alleviate that by picking you up. Um so so yeah, I don't know. Maybe it is a form of punishment without verbalizing it. But did I, is that the right call? Will she learn anything by that? Should I tell her that by the way, I could have gotten you, but I decided to pull the plug on the operation? What do I how do I navigate that?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oi, oi, yeah. Well, first of all, no judgment, right? Because you're a girl dad, you're a great girl dad. Um, I actually haven't met your daughter yet, which which is so strange that we've been friends all these years and I still haven't. Yeah, it's totally like, yeah, this is this is work, Jess, and you know, it doesn't it doesn't spill over into the personal life, but um but she sounds like a great kid anyway, and a very bright kid and a good kid, right? So I think she's probably and I don't have children, let me preface that. I have while you're negotiating with a with a 15-year-old, I negotiate with Aussie Doodles um and give them non-squeaky toys for the time that we're on the podcast. Um I do think that my general observation, I guess, as a 15-year-old daughter, what I noticed that my parents did incorrectly, which might help. They didn't discuss things with me on an adult level. So I think trust her to be an adult because she's going to be an adult in five minutes and she's going to have to navigate challenges, setbacks, opportunities. She's gonna have to start making choices. She's gonna have chores, bills, responsibility. She's got to be set up for that. So there's that. But the other thing is just talk to her. I would say, sit her down and say, so here's the thing. This happened a few times. This was my reaction to it. I don't know that I had the best the best reaction in the moment, but I'm gonna trust you as an adult. You're you're gonna be an adult soon, and this is on you. And here's how we can, you know, here's how, here's what's gonna happen next the next time you miss the bus. And maybe there's a slightly different, you know, procedure or something, or you know, but I think if you partner with her kind of in the decision making around it or in the problem solving around it, and she takes ownership of it. So they say authorship is ownership, right? If she then you ask her, so how do you think, as your dad, should I handle it when you miss the bus? Because here are the consequences that you're not seeing. And guaranteed she won't miss the bus. I mean, I can't guarantee that because she probably inherited lateness from dad. So you should get it.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Well, she guaranteed it in the car ride over. She was she was I don't know. She gets upset easily. Uh again, gets that from dad too. But um, she was she was she felt bad. She was she had a few tears in her eyes and she was saying, I promise I won't, you know, this won't happen again for the rest of the school year, which is like nine school days or something ridiculous. But anyway.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Perfect. We can definitely get behind that. But I I would just say three weeks. But I would say in general, just partner with her in it, because that's like the one thing that you know I've said to my mom, like, you know what? If you would have discussed the adult things that were happening around me and gave me some kind of say in decisions or how things would be handled, I probably number one would have surprised you with how much I know that you don't think I know, how much I'm dealing with that you don't think I'm dealing with, how much I'm feeling that you don't know I'm feeling. Um, and I think parents treat their kids like kids and they're gonna be kids for five minutes, but they're gonna be adults a lot longer. So I think prepare her for that as soon as possible. And that's that's good insight.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, I mean that's what I do with this is that's what I do with my dogs.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

We don't uh this is obviously like more of a real estate podcast, but we'd like to throw in some some anecdotes from personal life. And um I think that is a generational thing. I I feel very much like I was parented very similarly to what you just explained. I I think that looking back, I also very like very consciously in those youth moments in these teenage years, I I was like, give me like like treat me like someone with a brain or or or the ability to be responsible. Um and looking back, like there was just basic things about life. I would have made different choices for sure. Like even even college choice or like the choice of what's next after high school, it was sort of linear and sort of non-not not even up for negotiation. It was just like you're you're going to college and it will be this type of college and this, you know, and and and I never really was given the context of this stuff costs a lot of money, and like there's other ways that whatever, like like we can live life, and it was just sort of like it was linear for me.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah, and you didn't have authorship, so you don't necessarily have ownership of the decision, so you don't treat it with any respect. It's not it's not your fault, no one's doing anything wrong. But you know, my mother was very set on me going to a very specific college, which I was lucky to go to any college. I was the first one in my family to go to college, so it was like I was like, okay, yeah, I was kind of okay with going along for the ride because no one had had that experience before generationally, you know, like most of most of my family, grandparents, everybody like dropped out of school or didn't even friggin' go to school. So like college was a whole thing. But I definitely growing up would have appreciated some authorship on what was happening. Um, and I think that kids surprise us when they say that's why there's a whole kids say the darndest thing. Kids will surprise you at how insightful they actually are and objective at times. Like I can look at my mom and say, here's this. And I've said a couple things to my mom. She's like, I didn't even realize that I was doing that or that that was happening, or that you felt it's actually really helpful to sometimes hear from their perspective. I mean, she lives with you, she knows you better than anybody right now, and you may not know that. So sharing perspective might really be helpful. Just all right.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I'll I'll update you if she misses the bus anymore this this particular school year. I think I subtly think that she's trying to work a scheme where she like gets a cark? No, well, it gets me to like drive her in every day. Like, isn't there something you can do in in town every day?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

And like every day you should be doing this, Dad. This would be good for your real estate business.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Anyway, so if you have stuck with us now for for this uh intro, that was I don't know, just a quick A-side. But so what we were gonna do in today's episode, we wanted to talk a little bit about some market statistics and some analysis of what's happening in the spring real estate market. So again, just for context, we are looking at uh we're on May 20th, 2026. If you don't know, if you're joining us, we are in two real estate agents. We live in upstate New York. We're in this uh quad county area, a little bit kind of midpoint between Binghamton and Albany, if you are not a map person. Um semi-rural, couple of small cities, some nice, cute little villages and towns, but largely you know, rural, rural-ish properties. So that's that's kind of the context of how what our market is and what we do uh on a monthly basis is we take a look at the the published data that our local MLS provides for us, and we we see if we can discern any cool factoids from that. You know, obviously the data is there, but how do we interpret it? How do we have conversations with our clients and even other agents in the field? Um and then we did I today for this one I did a couple of custom little things that I haven't done before, but you guys can tell me if you like this or or don't like this. But um, just what I will end up doing in a moment is I'll share my screen because we do look at this this kind of pre-vamped report. All credit to the Atsiko Delaware Board of Realtors and the uh New York State Association of Realtors, who are the ones that uh you know provide the data to produce this document. So none of this is fabricated. I'm literally sharing a screen that is a uh a document that we basically have as part of our our our board dues and whatnot. Um but it's all data. The MLS system.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And to see the presentation, you can you can visit our YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yes, if you're listening, sorry, uh it won't be too visually based. I mean, but we will talk some numbers. But yeah, if you want, we also have this on YouTube. So all right, I'll um I'll go ahead and share this, Jess, and we'll we'll crack on.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Mm-hmm. We have been doing something similar like this more over three years, uh, where every month we we get together and we kind of look at what's happening. Um and we've been doing that pretty, I mean, pretty consistently, and have been actually saying, which is funny, how weirdo the numbers always are. So it's fun to see what's weird, what sort of feels normal. Um, I don't know that we've had really a normal market since we've started doing this at all. Uh things are are have always been um uh hot and heavy, I guess, in upstate New York, where sometimes other markets, you know, tend to go a little stale or cool down a little bit. We we really were kind of waiting for us to cool down, and maybe we are now, um, but we we we haven't been. Um maybe we're not at all. Let's find out.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, that's a good summary. I mean, well, we'll go into what we're seeing now, but the truth is the patterns that we have seen for probably the last I would say almost 12 months has been generally the same. And we'll go into it. But in our area, we are we have been in a consistently lightly seller-favored market, meaning slightly less inventory than one would would love in a in a healthy, booming real estate market. However, that is capped by all the the same economic pressures that are happening across the U.S., you know, higher uh residential mortgage rates hovering still around six, even six and a half percent as we speak. Um, cost of living is is is not keeping up with wages, um you know, unemployment is is creeping up. So the the US economy is always tied strongly into the real estate market, and um uh that so that's the backstory. However, locally, we have still had sustained increased property values proven by by the data that is generally produced, and and that's because our market is a hybrid of primary and second home. Uh it's almost I don't know if it's 50-50, but there's certainly a lot of second home owners or second second property owners in our area. So I think that you know that kind of takes some of that mortgage pressure out of it for a lot of people. But anyway, let's look at what's at hand and we'll discuss. So this always starts just with a small summary of some of some of the national trends, and then we'll look at the the local data. So just so you know, this is data from April of 2026 being released by our local board. U.S. existing home sales fell 3.6% uh compared to last April. And this is now putting the US market as at just under predicted 4 million single-family homes sold for the year. If you don't have any context, 4 million is a is a is a really low number of homes sold, like by the order of 1 million. Um a good healthy market should probably be about 5 million for the number of people that have houses in the US. So less sales are happening, and that's been trending downwards for months. Um, so that's a consistent thing. Um, this is again, they're explaining it, but this is uh tight supply, ongoing affordability challenges are constraining activity, like we just talked about. Um and then back to the national trends, just so anyway everyone knows, the the median existing home price does continue to go up. Uh, it's up 1.4% from last April. So the median US sale price is $408,800. And that's the 33rd consecutive month of year-over-year price increases for that median number. And that's national. And that's national. Um now, a small, small note to that. I don't have I didn't pull the link to it, but just I think yesterday, literally, Zillow, one of the main consumer portals out there, they have their own economists, they have their own real estate prediction professionals, and they every month they produce a prediction for the trend for the next 12 months. So they just predicted through May of 2027, and they are predicting a essentially a stagnant home value growth market. No, no, this is not number of homes sold, that's that's price. So uh instead of what we just said, 1.4% increase, which is still actually fairly low, um what you you would like your home to appreciate a little bit more, but they're saying it's gonna actually stay stagnant, which again, that's national. So if you look at micro pockets, there will certainly be pockets that are declining in value. There are right now. Um I think I think Austin, Texas is one of the uh they're negative 3.5% uh price growth for the year. Um, and and some of those some of the Texas cities, some of the Sunbelt. Um, I'm not looking at the maps at the moment, but anyway, and then you'll have pockets where the market is stronger and prices still continue to increase. The Northeast is generally one of those that has held that that upward trajectory. It is cooling off a bit, but it has held it, and our area has also held it. So that's the national picture, just so people can know. And then just on our local scale, um we we we increased our new listings by 15%. That sounds like a lot, but that's 167 new listings of homes in our four county market. And however, pending sales, meaning things going into contract, uh, we're down 34%. So a lot less things popped into contract in April compared to the prior April. Um, and as a result, if you add stuff onto market and less of them go into contract, you end up with inventory increasing, which is happening to a tune of 38%, Jess. 38% more inventory compared to last April. Um so that's kind of the Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

I think we expected that. I think we talked about that. I think we actually hoped for that, you know, again, because we want buyers to have choice. Um, when you go and you see a house and there's 30 offers on it, it just doesn't feel nice, which is what buyers have had to deal with for a while. So, you know, having home choice is really good for the consumer. Um, obviously, you know, we want our homes to hold value. Um, and just circling back to, you know, Texas being down, you know, three something percent, this is why we always tell people buy and hold. Um if you're gonna, if you're gonna move around a lot, you know, make sure you're yeah, look for a deal. But if you're gonna be in your house, what you know, the statistic might be different now, but we've always said at least seven years, you're okay, right? Seven to ten years before you know that you're gonna you're gonna be able to pull money out. We've always kind of lived by that and want to make sure that that's still something that's happening. So overall, if you stay put, you know, I would say 10 years minimum is a quick example. I bought my house for 600,000 right before the market crashed, it went down to a value of 420, um, which we all had a panic. I was there for 15 years. Um, we were able to sell it for 820. So hang in there if you're under, uh if you don't have to move and you're seeing scary numbers like that nationally, just stay put, make it work, you know, stretch it out. Um, because it it really does always recover. We've got what a 30, 60 year trend line. So if you're hearing, you know, value is down wherever you are, um hang tight. You're gonna be all right.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yes. Yep. Um I was gonna add something and then I it just completely blanked out of my mind. Um Jess, we also so again, our local data is telling us that we have a plus nine point seven percent increase in median sale price. That is the trend that you and I have been talking about for six, seven, eight months in a row. And around here it's been seven, eight, nine, ten percent median sale price growth every single month, Jess. So our prices are our prices, you know, knock on wood or whatever you want to call it, but are not following that national trend um of slowing down. Uh will it catch up at some point? I I think it has to. I really think it has to, and I think we might be just starting to see it now, but um that's been the trend for the last few years. So let's just quickly look at a couple other things. I don't want to go too crazy on data today, but I just want to give the you know this this little snapshot look. Um, and again, if you're not looking at this, then I'll try to explain it as we go. But um real quick, so in terms of new listings, this is literally new things on market, uh, both year to date compared to 2025. We're up uh 18.7 percent. So last year to this date, we had 400 houses listed, and this year we're at 476. It's a big chunk, it's a big chunk of new new opportunities for buyers. I I think that's substantial, Jess. Yeah, uh, and again, but the thing that counteracts that is uh last year, 296 of those were going into contract in essence as pending sales, and this year only 283. So we're actually putting more on the market, but we're putting less into contract. That's right, which means buyers are either pickier, they have less ability to buy the shiny orb that they desire because the market is you know, the the financing is difficult, or some some combination of the two, or sellers might be still listing their homes thinking they're they're worth, you know, they're they're made of spun gold fibers, and they might not be.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Um the other the other things I'm seeing too is that you know, people have to sell to buy. So more inventory is coming on um because they have to list their house in order to buy something. So I I would I would hope that that trend, you know, if that's we're going that way. I mean, a lot of people are saying that, but I don't know that the numbers are showing us that at the moment. But most of the people we're dealing with right now, they they've got to buy something, you know, once they sell. Um and some of them are buying locally as well. So I just thought that was um sort of interesting.

unknown 20:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

And so the other team is a lot of people. Yeah, sorry, sorry, I I had a second thought, I forgot it, and then it came back. But with you know, with more choice, again, people tend to feel like, oh, well, what else is coming on then? And so when there's no choice and they kind of know they have to like pick one, they do. But I think when you start giving people choices, they start looking for more choices, which is fine, you know. But I think people tend to see too much in a market like this, too. They'll see 10 houses before they choose one, which traditionally maybe they would see six, or you know, so I think people also, well, let's see what comes on. I'm hearing that too. Let's see what comes on next. Well, there's quite a bit on, so let's go look at what's on and let's let's see what works for you. No, I want to see what comes on next. So I think that's the other thing that's kind of happening.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

We're we're in a on a seasonal market, we have you know, we have proper winters, and oftentimes we have this spike of of the spring listings and the spring buyers. You know, this April, May, June time frame, it does tend to raise raise the the activity levels quite a bit. But um I'm not sure that the buyers are raising their activity quite as much as the Sellers are raising their activity.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

I waited all winter to list, and then it turns out that there aren't as many people putting things in a contract. You could have been the only the only house on the block if you'd listed it in you know January. But either way. This is just my opinion, but I don't put a ton of weight on because I understand the rural nature of our market and some houses just take longer to sell just by the nature of it. But either way, um we're up 12% for the year on days on market, and for the for the compared to last April, uh, you know, it's taking 89 days to find a contract compared to 70 days last year, which is a 27% increase in days on market. So either more choice means longer, longer process, or yeah, just something along those lines. And then the the last thing, Jess, is also a stat I generally have been kind of not the biggest uh lover of, especially as the preview listings start to take hold in the universe, which is a whole different soapbox thing for me. But percent of list price received is dropping down, and now we're getting to territory where it actually does start to mean something because in general, in our area, our percentage has hovered between 95 and 98, 99 percent for pretty much the whole time I've been in real estate, like seven, eight, nine years. Um, but now we are just tickling under uh 90, 93, 94%. So we're actually the the April data was 93.7% of list price was received, and for the year we're we're at 94.2. So that's starting to look like uh pricing is mattering more and more and more.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

More choice means more selectiveness for buyers, and also yeah, the the buyers are up against a tough economy. They've looked the bottom line is they've got to negotiate, they've got to negotiate harder because their numbers have to make sense for the buyer.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yep, for sure. Yeah, and and that's what's not highlighted, right? Like we usually talk about affordability, and we again we don't know what affordability is really based on in the graph, but we know what it's based on in real life. Well, it's down, it is down four percent.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

I didn't highlight it, but it is down four percent.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Okay, because sometimes, yeah, I mean, sometimes it, you know, it plays a I mean, I think it always plays a factor for sure. Um, but you know, life, again, life. So there's also, you know, a a national, uh, you know, international, you know, thing, I'll call it the thing going on, um, you know, between, you know, Iran and and the US and many other factors. And I think people are also waiting or nervous or you know, kind of tucking in and just trying to see how these things resolve too. Um, you know, there's definitely a a political climate and an international climate that people are worried about and kind of I think waiting to see. As you know, gas prices have already gone up too. And I hate to talk about all these things every single month, but but these are the things. The affordability is huge. So are buyers waiting to see if the very perfect house comes on the market next week, or are they waiting because things are gonna be more expensive and maybe I need to just hold off right now?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yep. Yeah, I think that's a good summary of where we're at. I don't I I don't want to belabor this document too much more today, Jess, because we will we will do this pretty much every month if you guys want to tune in. It's usually going to be a later month pod where we talk about the stats simply because that's when they come out for the the prior month. Um the last thing I wanted to just double down on was this days on market thing. So I selected a couple of prior months, but if we go back the last few months uh in December of 2025, so it's almost six months ago now, but that at that point we had a huge spike in days on market up 40 almost 46% compared to December of 2024. That's just out of the blue almost, it seemed like a spike, but then that continued 36% in January of 2026, 30% in February of 2026. Now, March had a total reversal, um which so sometimes state data is anomalous. But then in April, we're right back up to plus 27% in in days on market. So for the for the year, we're averaging uh a 7% increase from the prior year. So I think that's a space to watch. Now, if you're looking on screen, this graph down below here is showing uh a much longer trend line, a 13-year trend. And you can see how in the past, in our region, days on market was much higher. And you can see that we're starting to kind of we're starting to creep up towards that that you know, that larger, larger um nexus. So I that's one that I'm keeping my eyes on. I know that sellers are still being told by agents. I know this that sellers are being told by agents like this has to sell within a month or something like that. And the the bottom line is that might not be the right message anymore. Um pricing is always the message. If you price it correctly or super low or or aggressively, you should get the action. But sometimes sellers know their bottom line, they know where they're at, they know what their asset is, and they know what a what a what a what has to make sense for them might mean that they have to wait a little bit for that right buyer who for whom that house makes the right sense as well. And so I just think patience is is becoming less of a virtue in real estate. I think agents, this is my agent soapbox, but I think agents are pushing people to accept offers because they want to get paid. The agent wants to get paid. At the end of the day, I'm this is not like uh I'm a better agent thing, but at the end of the day, I want what's right for my seller. And accepting the first offer just because it's out there doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. What might be the right thing to do is let's let's read the pulse of this and know that if things are taking on average 80 days to go into contract, then that first offer after 12 days, it might not be the best offer you're gonna get. And maybe waiting three mo three weeks, a month, six weeks, you know, that's when you start to think, okay, what are things looking like? How do we strategize? But um I just feel like the like there is a difference between what's right for the seller and what's right for the agent. I have to be honest about that.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Well, I think we talk about that a lot. Like, you know, I think for for you and I both, we always want what's best for the client. I don't care what it is, they have to be happy. We're in their life for 15 minutes. We're gonna, you know, transact a deal, as friendly as we are, as much as we, you know, we love each other. We're gonna transact a deal, and then they have to live there. They have to bear whatever burden the house is. You know, maybe it's a wonderful burden and they're happy, you know. But maybe, you know, they get into a house, they've they've made too quick of a decision one way or another, um, or they get out of a house that maybe they regret selling. I mean, there's all kinds of different things that lingers long after the deal that we do have to be sensitive to and we do have to address and talk through things. And, you know, I've definitely had people change their minds and then change their minds again or have to wait or whatever it is. And I always tell them, listen, I'm on your timeline. That's always my answer. Um, you know, and and sometimes waiting is the best thing. Maybe they don't have to list it today if time matters. You know, I think we can push a listing back. And I think we've been trained as agents, get the listing now. When's the best time to list? Right now. That's always what we're trained to say. But the best time to list is not always right now. Um, maybe we do want to wait, you know, and see what the market does. You know, when is it really best for the seller, this property, you know, this house? And I think that we're definitely more mindful of that. And I think more agents are getting more mindful of that. Um, but they should be. And as a consumer, make your agent mindful of that. Make sure you, you know, it has to make sense in the market. Let's let's pick the best possible market we can be in at the best possible time for you. There's two factors to that. It's not always just just go. It's not always just go. Sometimes it is wait a little.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

So I I for me that cover that's great. Well, good summary uh what am I even where did my English skills just go? Good, nice good summarization.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Um But what I was trying to say is that yeah, that was a great, a great summary of what we just talked about, and we'll revisit this kind of thing. For now, I wanted to do something. I've never done this before, Jess. As much of a data sort of pseudo data person I am, I don't create my own stats a whole lot because, first of all, it takes some some effort, and it's hard to like go beyond the numbers, especially when you do have a decent document already to refer to. So I've kind of leaned on this document in the past as sort of like my market snapshot. But you can always ask more questions. I I'm a scientist by by past history, and one of the coolest things about science, Jess, is there's there's we don't ever know anything. We don't ever know anything. All we know is what we know due to the questions that we've asked and the tools we have to ask them. And correct there can always be a better question, there can always be a better grasp of reality because we haven't asked the right questions or we didn't have a technology or a tool to allow us to ask it. So this is sort of like this where I actually spent a little bit of time the other day and was like, well, what what would like what's behind the number a little bit? So let me let me pull back the curtain here and show you a couple things I tried to pull up here. So I look I wanted to look at our our market in these these tiers of pricing because I think we distinctly have four different brackets of real real estate happening at the same time. So I've chunked it for the now below 50,000 is almost always just some either a foreclosure or a true fixer-up or a teardown or or something that it doesn't make you know you can't move into it, right? For in our area.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

So it could be under 100,000 too.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Correct. So I just took 50 to 200k as that sort of entry level pricing bracket, starter home, small home, or something that's maybe older and needs a little bit of work, right? That's that's kind of your I can buy something bracket. Then I went from 200 to 300 because again, our our median price is right around 250-ish. So this is kind of like the sweet spot for the bulk of our primary residents, people that are employed locally, looking to own a home. That's kind of where the bulk of those exist. And then I looked at that next tier, that 300 to 500, it's not quite luxury, but it's certainly your slightly above average house. Um, and then you have your even around here, 500k and above. I know for a lot of markets that might sound like that's that's uh your average, yeah, it's your average home, but for around here, that's something either with a lot of land or it's a it's a quite nice home. So um that's that's what we that's what I kind of broke it up into. And then what I looked at was what has sold this year so far, so all of May up to like two days ago, and then what was active or or under contract or or you know in motion, so we don't know the final price of. Um and I thought this was sort of a uh you know, some some interesting trends here, and it should jump right out if you're if you're looking at the graph.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

But what we see is that I'd love you guys to to see this thing, it's pretty awesome. So if you gotta just jump on the YouTube and see this thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

In the lower tier, the the lower two tiers, so up to 300k, what you basically have happen is almost the same number of homes have sold as are available on the market. So for the 50 to 200, you have 68 homes have sold, and 73 are are of uh, you know, I'll call it available. Um and that means that most likely those properties are being somewhat competitive. Um they're actually, I didn't put it up, but the days on market for those is lower. Um, because again, they're probably priced slightly more attractively. Now, I honestly think a lot of these are fixer-uppers, and so I do think that usually fixer uppers take a little while to find the right person, but whatever. That's maybe that data doesn't bear that out. And then for 200 to 300, 71 sold homes and 92 are available. So again, skewing a little bit more toward buyer choice there, but still relatively balanced. But then what happens, Jess, is wild when you look at the 300 to 500, there's only been 32 homes sold between 300 and 500k in five months of this year for our four counties, and there's 149 available. Meaning that people shopping in that bracket have a huge pool of choice compared to the actual number of people that are willing to buy that property, and that trend continues and the higher range. Only 20 houses of above 500k have sold in our MLS, and there's 128 available right now. So if you're a if you're a this is this is informative to everyone, to agents, to sellers, to buyers. On the I'm getting excited, but like what does this tell you as a if you're talking to a seller, Jess, for a 300K and above home, what does this message, what does this tell you your message should be?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

I mean, my my first thought is always I mean, first of all, this is nuts when you look at this thing, when you see like the 300 to 532 versus 149 available, it's a pretty nutso graph to even realize this is happening, and this is what's pushing the inventory numbers up. It's more of the luxury homes, um, the larger, you know, lots of land or whatever, that's what's coming on, and that's what's sort of lingering. Okay, understood. So that primary market or that opportunity market under 300k, easy peasy all day. So if I have a seller right now that wants to sell and is ready to step into the market today, you know, and they're maybe I'm thinking maybe 315, 310. Listen, I'm gonna tell them let's go to 299 because it's gonna be in front of the right people. And then the right people can bid up a few thousand dollars, you know, if we get some good activity. But my list price is gonna definitely be affected by this. If I can list at 300, 299, 298 versus a three 305, 310, 315, maybe even 325, depending on the seller that I have, you know, and and how how quickly they want to move. Yeah, this is definitely going to going to matter where what bracket the house is in.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Yep. I agree. I mean, it really it stands out starkly to me that this is that upper tier is where the the pricing really, I mean, you're uh there's a lot of choice out there for the buyer. And therefore, you've got to either make the house look great or price it really attractively, or be be prepared to wait because the buyer has uh so much more choice compared to the the number of actual willing and able buyers there are to execute those contracts in that area. Only 52 homes are have sold above 300k in that in the MLS. And this is my my label says three counties, but it's actually the four county area. I I didn't write down Skoweri because it's it was too long to write. Um I just thought that was I don't know. For me, that was a fascinating piece of data because I never would have pulled this from if I just looked at the one that I always look at. Um so it took a little bit of of actual agent thinking, but I think it's given me a real talking point, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Um where it it Yeah, as it as it should.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Every agent loves the $450,000 home. But do you know, do you know that there's only 32 people buying this thing uh out of you know in the whole Quad County area?

SPEAKER_00 37:39

It's um the real the real numbers are are are always different than what you kind of think, what you feel, right? What what your opinion is. That's why we do this again for those talking points to be able to say to a seller and even to other agents, this is hugely helpful um to be able to set expectations. So again, our average sales price has been hovering around 240, 245, 235. It's been hovering around that anyway. So that that makes perfect sense when you think that and you see this 200 to 300 uh range is the one where you know there's activity. Um so outside of that, it's good to set an expectation, like we've been saying. Like, do you say to the seller, you know, we only wait two weeks and then we do a price reduction? Nope, not the seller that's 300 and above, you know, that seller needs more time for it to saturate, for the right buyer to find it, for them to come. So, yeah, it's a totally different marketing strategy, pricing strategy, everything strategy. If you're the agent that puts every property up and does the same thing for every property, whether it's a 500,000 or a or a 200,000, you gotta figure out how to update your marketing plan based on the price point, based on the property. I mean, you should have some some different tricks in your bag, and this shows you in your face, which undisputed, you need to have some kind of strategy for these different properties.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yep. Yeah, um, I I think it's I just think it's and also for the for the buyer's agent, if you if we now I don't want to spend too much more time on this, we've covered really the main the main concept, but if you're a buyer's agent, what this tells me is that I actually want to talk to my buyer even more uh to to even more finely tune what they're looking for. So this is this is the true do I and again we've always talked about Jess how sometimes the agent uh can kind of like uh nudge you, not nudge or steer, but like nudge you in a direction that you might not have thought you wanted something. But anyway, there's so much choice. My point is there's so much choice. Maybe you know, maybe you clean your filters of your search up a little tighter. So, you know, uh do you need uh you know, do you need uh I might have a search for a buyer, for example, for five to fifty acres, because they've said I want some land. Well, now I might have a conversation, okay. There's 149 options out there. Um like what what does that mean? What does the land do for you? What are you gonna do with it? What's your future usage? And maybe, you know, maybe it turns out that 50 isn't isn't really required, and I can make that five to twelve acres, and they just want a nice home site with some woods around it or something, yeah, and then that might narrow my search pool to eight or ten properties that are perfect, and they're not overwhelmed by the options versus that's great.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

That's a great point.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Those people in the lower in the lower tiers, you gotta make a little bit more of a snappy decision because you're up against a more competitive pool.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

That's what I was that was 100,000 percent. That's that's what I would say as well. Yep, I agree with that completely. That yeah, I mean uh you have a little choice, but you gotta, if you like it, grab it. You know, don't don't mess around if it works for you. Um, and I always like to tell people, and we can kind of end on this note, and thank you for making this graph and doing it.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Oh, I had two more little graphs, Jess. I don't want to go too long in it, but I had two more cute little graphs.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

You have two more little graphs for the case. Yeah, they're not as involved.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

They're not this was this was my gem. This is my my pride and joy, but I did two others.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Yeah. All right. Well then maybe let's go look at the other thing. This is what was I gonna say? I was gonna I was gonna make a great point. And it's I know and it's gone. But it's not even my brain.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Not done yet.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

No, no, I not at all. I was I was gonna make I was gonna shoot. Yes, I'm always the yes hand scratch.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yeah, one more. Um so in our area we have a lot of manufactured homes. Now, this is also colloquially called mobile homes. Uh technically, uh I I grouped manufactured and mobile if people are sticklers for the actual terms, but a mobile home is anything before 1976 built, and in our area, anything 76 and newer is a manufactured home. But I wanted to look at the median sale price for stick built versus manufactured. Now, I also put this at less than 10 acres. I didn't write this in the in the type here, but this is a a sub-10-acre search. Um, because in our area, double wides, single wides are quite common. They're totally viable homes. They don't have sort of the historical schema that like mobile homes used to have. Um, and frankly, they're a they're generally fairly affordable. But I did a search for 50 to 200k, that same bracket, but this time I split it up into which homes were stick built and which homes were manufactured homes. This is so interesting. And it turns out that the the actual the median price of this of the manufactured home is higher than the stick built. I have my I have my prediction or my opinion on why that is, but I'm I'm curious what you think that sort of tells me.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

This sort of just blew my mind because I mean, you know, you know me. I most of my business is I started downstate, I sold co-ops. So I'm in a totally different, you know, kind of experience bracket. Um, and I've only really dabbled in manufactured homes in the last few months. Um, it's definitely been a learning curve uh from financing to inspections to the appraisal is more than an appraisal.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

They're looking for tie-downs like on manufactured homes coming up.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

We definitely should because when when they ask me if the thing is tied down to the foundation, I'm like, what now? Or if the dang thing has a trailer hitch on it, and I'm like, oh, okay, okay. So yeah, it's definitely a learning curve. Um, but I I would have assumed, and maybe that's dumb on my part, but I would have assumed that stick built would have been the dominant I don't know, result here. So this is yeah, but but also like that's manufactured homes tend to be more affordable. And for that primary market, people need to live somewhere. And if they're in good shape, and some of them are wonderful. Some of them, I was in a triple wide that was like a freaking mansion. It was gorgeous. And I think you know, there's been a stigma. And I know I talked to some city buyers, a lot of city buyers, and like, oh, as long as it's not managed. Manufactured, and I'm like, yeah, they stick their nose up. But don't some of these homes, and that's the other learning curve I'm having, that some of these homes are actually quite beautiful. Um and they can be done so well and so cute, and you can add to them. So it just doesn't look like a box. You know, you can definitely have a garden still, you can have chickens, you know, you can have it on land. It gives you so many more options. Um, so that's probably why people are seemingly uh trending in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Yeah, so this I think there's some hidden, there's some hidden truth here that this isn't showing. First of all, I didn't filter by age of home uh and can and like so basically 50 to 200k, again, we said in the beginning of my analysis, this is kind of your your fixer upper slash entry level bracket. So I bet a lot of these stick-built homes are older. They're probably in need of significant or comprehensive renovation or repair. And so this is your this might not be showing the true cost of the project. This is just the acquisition cost, if that makes sense, versus uh the manufactured homes are uh again. This I didn't sort by date of manufacture, but um, you know, a a a 2000-era manufactured home is gonna be a nice house for a still a long time. It's gonna be a nice little place versus like, oh, you gotta rip out this, rip out that, update this, update that, you know. So I think these are maybe a little bit more move-in ready um for most people. So I I I that's my opinion on why that that number looks like that. Um and then moving on, one last one, which is which is also the same, the same type of analysis, but I looked at the the the days on market and the sale to list price ratio. Again, that same that's this is the same price bracket, 50 to 200k. And I looked at um the stick built versus manufactured homes. So what we what we see here is the the days on market were much lower for the stick built home compared to the manufactured home. Uh 42 days for them for the stick, 67 days for the manufactured home, even though we just saw the prices were we were. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

And then the sold to list is uh actually about the same. So they're right in line with that average. We just saw from the beginning of the pod that 93 to 95 percent uh price. So that didn't really move the needle, but that um the days on market was interesting because the the fixer upper stick house that's selling for less on in median is going into contract sooner versus the manufactured home selling for a little bit higher, but taking a little longer to find the right buyer.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Possibly grabbing it with cash and the manufactured homes are again maybe you know more popular with lower income, you know, buyers that are having to finance. Um, so you're definitely you're gonna pack that, you know, that that time in there for that. I don't know. This is this is totally interesting, but it's great to break this down into kind of the little the micro markets and also like the different types of properties because they're so different. We can see when our numbers don't make any sense when we do the market update, it's because of all these little nuances within those numbers. So thank you for doing that because sometimes we can't figure out what the heck is happening with this market, and it's because so many different types of properties are happening. That's why.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Um Yeah, I'll be honest, that was kind of fun. Uh it makes me want to think of like new little categories to look into everyone.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

We should definitely do that because yeah. Well, it's like, you know, in the city, it's it's a it's a funny analogy, but you know, I was a co-op specialist, which people really didn't want to mess with because of the long board process, but there was a lot of other things that made it easier, actually. Um I I feel like the manufactured homes is almost like the co-op of upstate New York. I've said that before. It's a little, yeah, it's a little easier entry-level purchase. So, for example, like a co-op usually sells for less money. You might have a higher maintenance monthly because you're paying the building, the management company to actually maintain uh most of the mechanicals and all those things, the roof, like none of that stuff is your problem. It's like the from the paint on the wall inside is yours. Everything behind the wall is the building's problem. So you pay a slightly higher monthly maintenance, it's called. But I feel like, you know, for a lot of people, your first time purchase, your most affordable purchase in the city is a co-op. And I ended up freaking selling millions of millions of co-ops because that's kind of where the market moves the fastest, and that's where people almost have the greatest need. I'm starting to see that in the manufactured um, you know, home profile as well. It's similar to the co-op buyers, and that's pretty interesting, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Yeah, we'll we'll do a whole we should do a whole pod on manufactured because there's there's a lot in there between the the older ones, the you know, the middle tier ones and then the newer ones and what's coming out now. Um it's a fascinating space. I I'm a proponent of affordable housing. So however, however, people can get into a nice, clean, healthy home, I'm a proponent for it. I I think that in the past, you know, the energy efficiency geek in me is like, yeah, that 1980 manufactured home is is gonna be it's gonna cost a lot of money to heat and cool because the the walls are two by fours and the insulation is probably super thin. But guess what? You have a roof, you have you know, water and heat, and you can live. And even if it costs 30, 40, 80, 100 bucks more a month to to heat and cool, whatever, that might be my my little soapbox thing, but at the same time, it's a house and you can afford it and you can live in a few years. You gotta get in it, yeah. Good on you.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Like a co-epic. Absolutely. So, no, I mean any any affordable housing, you know, people need housing. I mean, this is a great this is a great segway into a nice ending. People need housing, you need a place to live. Look at everything, right? There's more choices coming up. See what you can afford. Again, we've talked about before, like look at that monthly, right? What's your monthly really gonna be? That's the most important thing. You know, the purchase price itself is only one factor. Um, but you know, being able to afford a home where you feel safe, where you can live, where you can be with your stuff and your cats and your dogs and your kids. That's that's the point. And if it helps um to hear, you know, these statistics, it helps to kind of guide. That's why we we like to do it. You should definitely be aware of what's going on out there. So you're a better informed consumer, better informed agent.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Maybe we'll look up just uh the average distance from us from this the primary school, and then I can figure out what how long the drive is when my daughter misses the bus. That's nice.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Why don't you just buy her a car? Dad. I was my dad bought me a car when I was 16, though. When's her birthday? When is she turning 16?

SPEAKER_01 50:46

It'll be in it'll be February of 2027.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Oh no, you just start saving your pennies. Give her your car, give her your Subaru, and you get a new car.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

That was anyway, this is a different topic. But yeah, that was that was the long-term plan. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

So if you tell us, I wasn't planning on, I wasn't planning it in seven months, I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

But you can that's but see, you can definitely partner with her in that goal and say, listen, I'm gonna give you my car in seven months if you're never late again. She'll be like, awesome. Because just getting to school on time though, honestly, and I know we're wrapping up here, is not sexy. You have to get to school on time. Well, where's the what's exciting about that? Who cares? What's exciting about that is that I'm gonna get a car in seven months. That's exciting. I will get my butt to school on time to the bus stop on time. There you go. So life advice, real estate statistics, and living us.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Yeah. Thank you, Jess, for your time. This fine day. I will uh we'll catch you next episode. Everyone listening, thank you so much. If you haven't already, please like, follow, subscribe, check us out on our YouTube page. Uh you can I don't know what I'm even saying. You can find us on your your trusted Spotify, your trusted podcast app.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

We don't know where this goes. We have somebody else do us.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Come back for more.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

If you want to know about leverage, ask us. Great. So we'll see you guys.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

All right, bye.