a trend is forming; august by the numbers...

[Kenny Smith]

We closed out the summer with interest rates going to a 23 year high, but that wasn't the only thing to increase. We saw days on market, expired, and daily price reductions ALL go up, with median home prices going down.

To me, this is a shift in the other direction. Albeit a small one, a shift nonetheless.

I get asked all the time about when is the market perfectly balanced? When I know it's not moving either for me or against me whether I am a buyer or seller? The answer is never...

The market is always in flux, shifting one way or the other. What is important to know and understand is how significant are these shifts month over month, what is the data telling us, and how can we put together an educated guess of what is going to happen in the coming months.

Certainly nobody can accurately predict what will happen with the market, rates, inventory, etc. Only their best educated guess based off of the data.

So, let's look at the numbers. We saw median days on market go from 11 days to close out July, to 14 days to close out August.

Expired listings (house never sold and expired off the MLS) and daily price reductions also increased dramatically in August. Meaning, sellers aren't getting the price for their homes that their "comparatives" were getting the month or two prior.

Lastly, median home prices went from $587k in July to $579k in August.

After 3 months of seeing this data move in a certain direction, I would argue we are seeing a trend unfold. Now, that we are out of the historically busy buying and selling summer season..could these now "trends" in the market increase at a larger scale if the variables stay consistent? The Septembers numbers will for sure be intriguing...