Here is our market snapshot for the nation for October 2022. I am going to highlight Months Supply (up 4.7% compared to September 2022) and Median Days On Market (up 8.2% compared to the previous month). Here is why these two umbers are important.
We normally see real estate starting to enter its seasonality phase right about now. This is when you start to see fewer buyers and sellers in the market place. It usually begins in October and then carries through to about Valentine’s Day, with November and December being the lowest transactional months. Months Supply is on the rise at a time when we normally see it slowing down and part of the answer as to why is the Median Days On Market.
When homes sit on the market longer (while new homes keep coming on the market), you end up with a “froth” of properties that are not selling because they are overpriced. These are often slow to reprice, which can take months to happen. As more and more of these come on the market, you end up with this layer at the top of overpriced homes pushing all the numbers up.
It will be interesting to pay attention to the inventory levels over the next few months and see if some of this overpriced inventory starts to come down and get consumed. And also to see if fewer properties come on the market, like we normally see this time of year.