Lake Sinclair Blog

A transaction that occurred in March led to some revelations for looking at the data for February. I'll explain, but first let's get to the data.

Looking at price first, because this is where I had my... oh let me look at THAT moment this month because the price, as you can see the price hasn't been this low since 2013.  The average sales price was just $181,146 and the median sales price was at $154,500.  I wondered why the drop of 50,000 in just a month and there turns out to be two important things to factor into this month's numbers. The first is location, some of the under 100,000 homes weren't really on "Lake Sinclair", but were far upstream on tributaries that run into them and agents don't know the difference and check "Lake Sinclair" and not river. And a second thing of not occurred to me because this month I sold a For Sale By Owner property.  My buyer clients got a deeply discounted price because no agent was looking out for the seller's interests.  Three of the properties in the sold data for February were in the same category.  The sellers tried to "save" money by not hiring an agent and in the end it likely cost them money because they have no idea what the price should really be.

So the lesson here is for sellers to not try to go it alone. You need someone who knows the market well to be on your side and helping you make educated and informed counters and decisions. Sold to list percentage was 89.22%  The for sale by owners also factored heavily into that number.

Now that the dreadful price is out of the way let's talk about some good news. 12 sales of waterfront property occurred on Sinclair, up from the 7 last month. Also better than the past two years for February.  My prediction is we're not going to sell as many as we did last year, so a month where we beat last years total is great. In March last year we closed 18. I don't foresee 18 closings in March this year.  In a stable market there is 6 months of inventory. Right now we have a 21 month supply putting us in a buyer's market.

Now back to more downward news with the days on the market average increasing over both last month and last year. In a stable market properties take 60 days to sell. But with an over abundance of inventory, yet still down from out highs, homes are taking longer to sell. February brought an average DOM of 215.  The low was 40, the high was 557 days on the market. I am hoping to see this number become more stable this year as inventory is down from where it was at with more than 3 years worth for the past 6 years I have been analyzing and reporting the data. 

I'd be happy to email you monthly market reports if you are "watching" the market to determine if  you are in the market to buy or sell.  You can call me with your email address to get added to my monthly newsletter that includes our market reports. It also includes some neat other things as well.  You can also email me with "please send me market reports" in the subject line to tammy@lake-sinclair.com 

If you are searching for property on Lake Sinclair... start with Lane Realty