McCormick Ranch Sales Updates: September 2021

As we move through the last of the hot weeks, we are seeing a bit of a tempering with our local real estate market.

It's really a sign of two kinds of homes: those that are priced correctly and those that aren't. Gone are the days (at least for now) of pricing a home 5-10% above it's realistic price and somehow getting it. Buyers are getting smart and a bit more financially conservative again.

Any home out there within a certain range of it's realistic price is still selling almost instantly, be it over the first weekend or the first week.

Any home out there that is waaaay above it's market value is sitting around and stagnant. We've seen a proliferation of listings above $1,000,000. As of this writing, there are 13 active homes here. It is easy to get sucked into the mindset that basically any single family home is now over $1,000,000. Yet, the majority still need to be a fully remodeled one. And that fully remodeled one can't be listed for another $200,000 over the true value or it will still just sit.

Buyers are smart!

So where do we go from here? My expectation is still that the remainder of the year will be flat before another increase in the Spring. You can see that prices have really steadied for single family (and condos to a degree) over the past few months.

We do have the end of the eviction moratorium and end of the mortgage deferrals during the pandemic. This has the chance of affecting our market but there doesn't appear to be enough data showing a huge number of these listings smacking the market all at once. If it is a steady drip then we will see a bit of reprieve versus a full scale drop.

While the number of sales looks to have dropped off a cliff, it is actually in line with previous years. We see a general slowing from July through December. We also still have around half the number of active and available homes as prior years around this time, excluding 2020. Thus, there isn't a lot of downwards pressure except that buyers are tired.

Price per square foot continues to increase at a high rate. When we see sales price flatten some, this tells me one of two things: 1. People are buying smaller homes. 2. People are buying more renovated homes that sell for a higher price per square foot.

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Yours in McCormick Ranch real estate,

Randy Arriola, HomeSmart