Well, it took our local association almost a month, but they’ve finally published the stats for home sales in February, and once again we’ve got good news to report here in Central Oklahoma, although we did see a small drop in overall volume for the first time in quite a while.
Hopefully this summary will help you see for yourself what the market’s really doing, rather than buying into the false perception that’s so easy to follow these days.
Check this out:
Since the negatives are what so many like to focus on, here they are:
- Approximate 4% drop in the number of homes sold compared to this time last year
- 1% decrease in total volume over a year ago
- Homes are taking about a week longer, on average, to sell than last year
And here are the positive factors that sometimes are ignored:
- We experienced an annual appreciation rate of almost 3%
- Interest rates are historically low, averaging 5.56%
- We saw a respectable drop in absorption rate (which I predicted last month), meaning that inventory is selling off and falling back to a healthy level
The negative media-fed perception is still keeping a lot of buyers on the fence until they feel safe again, but spring fever will counter a lot of that and we’ll likely see an increase in volume next month.
Overall, these numbers are worth getting excited about. While a few markets around the country are seeing decreasing values and slow markets, we’re still enjoying annual appreciation. Are you still sitting on the sidelines??
About Ryan Hukill
