The number of existing home sales is surging across the country. The National Association of Realtors announced they are up almost four percent from the previous January — nearly a ten year high. Those national trends are being mirrored in the Triad as well.
The bump in home resales is a sign of growing confidence in the economy, and it's being seen in practically all regions of the country, including the South. In Guilford County, resales were up almost eight percent. Greensboro Regional Realtors Association President Kathy Haines says that she sees no slowing in the demand as we enter the all-important Spring market.
“Because there's just nothing out there for buyers to choose from right now. Throughout the United States there's been a lack of inventory. There certainly has been in our region. We have got four and a half month's supply of single family homes, and that's down twenty-six percent”
Haines anticipates even stronger sales numbers in 2017 than last year, but a lot of that depends on whether inventory can keep up with demand. She says stabilizing interest rates, and higher rental costs have contributed to a boost in existing home sales. She adds that buyers are further incentivized by down payment assistance programs and mortgage credits currently offered by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency.
Former Winston-Salem Regional Realtors Association President Stephen Long is equally bullish on the 2017 home market. In Forsyth County, he saw a seventeen percent jump in home sales in January compared to last year. He attributes some of the rise in pre-existing home sales to increased consumer confidence, low interest rates, and loosened regulations at many lending institutions.
Long's optimism extends to new home construction as well. He sees the shift coming as part of a natural post-recession economic cycle, as small and large building stopped for nearly a decade.
“And in the meantime, we were still bringing in people, and the population growth didn't change”, says Long. “So, we're starting to feel the effects of more people coming in over that timeline, but not having enough doors to meet the need of the population that we're at now, especially in the entry level price range.”
Meanwhile, he says local home values are stabilizing. Values have risen seven percent over the past year, and that's two percent above the national average. Long says sellers are enjoying higher sales prices as well, on average getting ninety-eight percent of their listed sale price. Even as recently as five years ago, he says home owners were making offers to buyers and getting between eighty to ninety percent of the listed sale price. Long says values and demand are back in line with where they should be.
“This is how the real estate market works”, he says. “It goes up. Sometimes it's a buyer's market. Sometimes it's a seller's market. Ideally you want to stay around six months of inventory and keep that balanced market, but it's going to teeter to the left and right of that throughout the economic cycles and right now we're teetering a little bit to the seller's side. So, they've got a little more leverage than they're used to.”