HAR has published the initial numbers for the Houston Market in May. We are creeping up to a near all time high for listings with nearly 39,000 properties available.
However, interestingly, NEW listing volume for the individual month is down just over 6%.
I think this is one of those ebbs and flows you see where months can be slightly different when comparing 2 different years, so looking at the years as a whole is informative. This is also why lots of organizations track rolling 3 month averages to smooth out the spikes in any kind of data.
Sellers were still pricing their listings slightly higher with a 2.3% increase over last May, HOWEVER we will see how that plays out in final sales prices when they release the full numbers which I'll have for you next week. You'll remember last month the sale prices were down fractionally at 1.4% lower than last year.
So we are now officially in what is considered a balanced "normal" market at this time. The sentiment that the market is "bad" is not really true, it just feels less robust than the market did a few years ago...but such is the cycle of Real Estate.
As the total amount of inventory grows, the importance of prepping your house to stand out above the competition has never been higher.
Even some of our best prepared homes are not getting as much showing traffic as they have in years past, so it's important that the condition of the property makes every showing count.
