I have been watching one statistic closely because I think it best tells the state of our current market: Number of Sold Residential Properties. This metric is the real time data of how quickly properties are moving. In my personal day to day business, I can tell that properties are taking longer to sell and that buyers aren’t as motivated as in the past. This necessarily will lead to slower movement of inventory. But how much slower? And how does that translate into pricing?

Looking at each month individually, you can see that we had the following amount of residential closings in Summit County per month in 2023:

If you look at the chart, you will see that 2023 numbers are substantially below previous years. Our average over all months should be around 150 closings a month.

If you compare just the month of June over the years you will see :

June 2023: 82
June 2022: 125
June 2021: 205
June 2020: 216
June 2019: 118
June 2018: 172
June 2017: 182
June 2016: 162
June 2015: 178

So, my rough estimation is that we are down in number of closings anywhere from 30-50% depending on the time of comparison. (Certainly we know that COVID created more demand and more transactions).

This Rolling Twelve Month sales chart shows the trend line when combining stats collected over the last 12 months. June 2022 to June 2023 is down over 50%.

In the most dramatic chart, you can see that new listings are down considerably! This chart is a 12 month rolling so it shows trends v. monthly stats. June 2023 had a comparable number of new listings as previous years in June, but when looking at the trend, you can see that we have less inventory than in the past. This is also contributing to less sales.

Looking at Days on Market isn’t a good indicator because May and June are the months where most people list their properties for sale, so we had a flood of 0 days on the market properties which skews the stats.  Rolling twelve-month trends analysis shows stable DOM.

When looking at pricing, average prices are holding steady. Using the rolling 12 month chart for Average Sales Price, you can see that prices aren’t dipping dramatically but rather plateauing. 

We are seeing slight changes in the sold to list ratio with some softening, just above 2%, in the 12 month trends. Where properties were closing at or over 100% of list price, we are now at about 97.7%. Sold to List Ratio, rolling 12 months:

What does all of this mean to you?

For Sellers, it’s about being competitive in the marketplace. With less sales and less demand, your property needs to show well and be priced perfectly to be the next sale. For Buyers, it means you probably have more time to make a decision. While we still see some properties go under contract in a day, we are now seeing that buyers have a bit more time to view and purchase properties. If the trend of low monthly closings continues, I predict that inventory will collect, days on market will increase, and that there will be good buying opportunities this fall in September or October when Sellers need to decide if they are going to price reduce or keep the property for the winter.