RECORDS ARE BEING BROKEN…
I have written several times recently about the low inventory. The number of only 31 homes listed on January 8th of this year is the lowest number that I can remember. Certainly, it is lower than on any date on our chart which began in 1999. The number keeps our sales numbers down because there literally, it nothing to buy. We still are seeing a huge showing volume on our listings and multiple offers on most of them. This seems to be resulting in rising prices. In my subjective opinion, prices in Washington Park are very close to back where they were in 2007, for most price ranges, before all of this nonsense started. I am still seeing that we are not quite back when it comes to homes priced over $700,000 but we are getting there. It won’t be long.
Many of the high end homes have not been part of the recorded market during the downturn. Have you noticed all of the homes that have been built in Wash Park in the last 2 or 3 years? Most of these are custom. Thus, there never was a sale so they are not in our data. I do think that this activity has kept a damper on the high end values. In other words, when some buyers look at things that are a few years old, they find they can build brand new for about the same price. Obviously, many have chosen that option. Nearly every block in East Wash Park and several in West Wash Park have at least one home that was built new in the last 2 or 3 years. I would expect that trend to continue as long as the interest rates and construction costs remain low.
