The #1 question I'm asked is, "How is the Market?"

In last months market update video, I shared that the July numbers should be interesting for a number of reasons.

Interest rates have changed a lot over the last couple of months but they did go down in the last few weeks. Higher interest rates certainly affect affordability and possibly demand.

Not to mention inflation is a major bummer right now. Everything costs more and everyone’s budget is taking a beating. But when we look at July sales data and compare it to June numbers, I really think the biggest impact on sales was summer.

Pre-pandemic we typically slowed down during the summer. Actually the slowdown often begins mid May with Mother’s Day and graduation.

June is a very busy month in Des Moines with events, farmers markets, festivals, and lovely warm weather. July is generally slower than June, and August (just so you know for next month!) is the slowest month of summer.

The Iowa State Fair is a major event (and major distraction!) for 10 days, then you’ve got end of summer vacations, back to school, and it’s usually too hot to even think about going outside.

Anyway, all this to say that we did see fewer sales in July than in June. But a NORMAL amount less. Not a “sky is falling” or the “market is crashing” amount. This video is numbers heavy, but that’s sort of the design of a market update.

Also, I realized that I left Johnston out of this video and June’s, whoops!! I’ll do better next month, I promise!!

You can find the area-specific updates here:

01:53 Greater Des Moines

06:46 Beaverdale

08:34 Des Moines West

10:28 Ankeny

12:02 Urbandale

13:43 West Des Moines

14:42 Waukee

15:58 Grimes

16:44 Market Update Summary

Video Transcript

The most common question asked of me and probably every other realtor in the world is how's the market? The answer to that is very nuanced, because it depends on so many different factors, but it's August, 2022. We just got done with July. Obviously, that's how calendars work.

But if you have watched the news read any articles, seen anything on social media, the media would make it sound as though the world was coming to an end, the bubble is going to burst. The real estate market is going to crash all of these very negative things, which are not true. And I believe there were probably clickbait headlines because, you know, I click on the headline.

All the real estate market is going to crash. That makes me more interested to want to know what exactly is going on. And so, last month I did a market update video where we went over, what was actually happening in the greater Des Moines area. And I thought we should continue that.

 So let's see what the trends are telling us, the actual facts for the greater Des Moines market. So first of all, let's compare the entire market. So the greater Des Moines residential market, this includes condos, single family homes. It does not include multifamily or commercial properties or Anchorage's, it's just residential against residential.

So in July, like actually as of yesterday, so by the time you see this video, it's actually going to be like a week old, but these numbers are already a day old because I cataloged them yesterday. And today I did my hair to do this video for you.

So at the moment that I recorded these numbers, we had 2,572 active homes on the market, which is an increase from 2,371 last month. So that's good that we're still getting more inventory on the market, but it's still only two months of inventory. So, that's still a sellers market that is not an indication that the sky is falling or that the real estate market is crashing.

The average list price for the active properties on market was $397,906. And they are on market and average of 79 days. Now we know that number is inflated because new construction properties have a tendency to be on market for a really long time because they might just list a proposed property for sale.

And, you know, a lot of times the proposed properties might result in a custom build to order sale for a different house somewhere else, but it's still generating business for that builder. It's just not selling that particular property. So it's slightly inflated. And I don't put a lot of weight on the active days on market for that reason.

So if the real estate market is crashing, did we sell any houses last month? So in the month of July, there were 1,216 homes that went under contract in July that are still under contract. There could be some that went under contract and closed in the same month. If you're paying cash, you can usually close in a couple of weeks, but overall having over 12000 properties go under contract in July.

I think that's a pretty healthy sign. It is a little bit less than what went under contract in June. So in June we had 1,388 homes go into contract versus the 1216 this month.

Is that the sky falling? No. Is it the real estate market crashing? I don't think so. I mean, hindsight is 2020 and we're in the thick of it right now, but I think what is actually happening is that it is normal for things to be slower in July and August.

So look forward to next month's market update, being a similar theme to this one, because this is the first year in three years that we've been allowed to have a summer. And so of course people are distracted and they're maybe not focused on real estate, but that's normal. And it's normal that the market picks back up after labor day.

So I think what we're seeing is normalcy, isn't that a novel idea, the average list price for those pending homes is $308,205. And that is actually up from $297,000 in June. So sure there might be less homes going into contract, but they're selling at a higher price in July versus June. They also took a little bit longer to go under contract.

So the average days on market for those properties is 26 versus 24. The properties that went under contract in June, and that just further supports that people are outliving their lives and I'm here for it. Let's all enjoy summer while we can, although I also enjoy the air conditioning while I can.

So in July we saw 1,418 homes closed. The majority of them went under contract in June, maybe may cause it takes 30 to 45 days to close. If you're getting a loan, some might be 60 days, but if it closed in July, then may and June is the majority of windows went under contract.

And the average sold price for those closed homes was $305,343. And they were on the market and average of 26 days before they went under contract, which is interesting because those sold in may, in June, they went under contract may in June, but they didn't close until July.

So that days on market in July of 26 days is the same as those that were on market in July and went under contract. So it's really just more of the same. There's no big change in comparison we had in June, we had 1,683 closings for a very similar sold sales price of $304,826. And the average days on market for the June closings was 22 days.

But those went under contract in May and April. So you can see from April to May, to May and June, the days on market went from 22 to 26, which is only four days. That's not really very long. Okay. So how did our neighborhoods compare to each other? In Beaverdale? We have 90 homes currently on the market for an average price of $208,353.

And they've been on market for 37 days on average. So again, that's active time on market. It doesn't really tell the whole story, I think until it goes under contract because a house, a house could kind of be a stinker and it could stay on the market for six months or a year and never actually sell. And so that affects the active time on market, but really maybe the house just sucked.

You know, maybe it's not actually indicative of the market. Maybe it's indicative of that particular property that didn't sell very fast. So last month we had in July, we had 84 homes go under contract in Beaverdale. And you know, so there's 90 homes on market right now.

That's like 1.07 months of inventory. If you look at what sold last month versus what's available today, the average pending list price is $189,820. And those properties sold in 18 days. On average. Then in July, we closed 94 properties for an average sales price of $224,705 for an average time on market 13 days. So 13 days to 18 days between the sold and the pending.

It's not very long. That is not a lot of time. Five days does not indicate the sky is falling. Just so you know, it's five days, that's a vacation for a lot of people, five days in Des Moines, west, that neighborhood that is west of downtown, but it is not quite Western wine that is Duane west. And there are 57 homes currently for sale for an average price of $496,062.

We've got some pretty swanky neighborhoods in that area of town. And the average time on market for those properties is 54 days. And that's something to think about too, the higher, the price, typically the Longer it takes to sell. So it makes sense that homes in a more affordable price range sell faster because the pool of buyers is larger.

More people can afford those, those properties. Whereas when you more than double your price from 208,000 and Beaverdale to 496,000 in de Moines, west or south of grand or north of grand, you know, those are really nice neighborhoods, then you're going to, you know, cut your buyer pool drastically.

I don't know what that percentage is, but it feels like it would probably be more than half. I don't know, maybe an actual statistician would know that answer anyway. So 54 days on market for those properties in July, we put 39 properties under contract in Des Moines west for an average price of those properties being $352,691.

And they were on market on average 27 days. And then of course there were 52 properties that sold that closed in July for an average sales price of $342,251. And those run market for 84 days, which is pretty high because even even last month, the June closings was 14 days on market on average.

So either I have a typo in there, or there was a house that was on the market for a long time and it finally closed. Let's go to the suburbs. What is happening in Ankeny? Ankeny has a lot of homes for sale. They are still building properties in Ankeny. There are 317 homes actively on market.

So that's great. We have homes to sell in Ankeny. The average price for these active listings is $411,736 for an average time on market of 79 days. New construction, higher time on market. There were 141 properties that went under contract in Anthony in July for an average sales price of $359,676.

They were on market on average 21 days. Then in July in Ankeny we saw 146 closings for an average price of $372,141 and an average time on market for those properties of 32 days. Interesting in June in Ankeny homes sold faster. So like the, the closed homes were on market and average of 22 days, which would be those that went under contract in April and may.

But the average sales price was $338,000 compared to $372,000. So sometimes we have people who think the sky is falling, that the real estate market is going to come to a crashing halt and prices are going to go down and maybe they will. I don't know, but that's not what we're seeing in these numbers.

Prices are not going down. I mean, they might be in some areas, but in This specific example, that's a pretty significant price increase from 338,000 to 372,000. Interesting, right in Urbandale there are 161 active listings on market for an average price of $455,907. They've been on market for 76 days on average.

And last month there were 65 properties put under contract. So that gives us about two and a half months of inventory in Urbandale, which that did increase by a whole month. So last month it was one and a half months of inventory. Now it's two and a half months of inventory. Interesting. So in Urbandale, we had 65 homes under contract last month for an average price of $348,450.

And they were on market and average of 23 days. So on average, all of these communities are still under 30 days in market. When I started selling real estate in 2010, it was pretty normal for homes to be on the market. Gosh, I think for 120 some days I could be wrong.

That's been a long time for me to remember that number, but this is still a very fast moving market and inventory levels overall are still very low. It is still a sellers market in July in Urbandale. We saw 78 closings for an average price of $393,307. And they were on market for an average of 26 days.

Now that sales price is down a little bit from the closings that happened in June at $407,000 versus 393, but it's $14,000. It's still not that much. And there was one day difference for time on market. I still don't think this is sky is falling information. Okay.

So in west Des Moines, there are 166 active properties on market for an average list price of $437,479. And they've been on market for no surprise 81 days on average because there is new construction in that neighborhood.

In July, we saw a hundred new homes go under contract for an average price of $350,729 in 18 days on average, which is pretty fast, although that's still three days, three days slower than June. And so having that a hundred homes go under contract in July, there's 166 homes on market.

That means we have just a little bit more than one and a half months of inventory there in July, we saw 112 properties close, where they officially signed off for an average price of $345,523. Those properties were on market and average of 16 days in Waukee. There are 217 homes actively on the market for an active list price of $476,716.

And they've been on market for 110 days on average. So Waukee is last month. We had 3.2, four months of inventory in Waukee. And this month is, you know, similar trend. We've seen that inventory go up in almost all of the markets and it has increased in Waukee by about half of a month. So there were 59 properties in Waukee that went under contract in July for $417,880 in an average time on market of 70 days.

And so now we have 3.6, eight months of inventory in Waukee. If those pending sales trend continues, then in July, we closed 84 properties for an average of $393,065, which is a little bit higher than the $388,000 from what was closed in June. So prices are still going up and in June and July, both of the time on market for those closings was 40 days. So no change there.

Finally in Grimes, we have 57 homes actively on market for an active list, price of $459,598. And they have been on market for an average of 91 days. There's about two months of inventory and Grimes because last month in July, we had 28 homes go under contract for an average price of $405,031. And those were on market for an average of 34 days.

Then in July, we closed 28 properties for an average price of $438,347. And those were on the market and average of 18 days. So overall we are definitely seeing the time on market increase, but not at the rate that would indicate the sky is falling. So a few days increase not that big of a deal.

Heck even at this point a month of an increase is not that big of a deal because the amount of inventory that we have available based on what has been selling is still indicative of a sellers market. Plus this last weekend, we had three buyers write offers on properties and all three were in a multiple offer situation.

Well, one just had two offers. One had six offers and the other had 16 offers. That is not a sign that the sky is falling. That is not a sign that the real estate market is going to crash. So while they're going up, I think that we're looking at a return to normalcy, which is the saying that has been said a lot over the last couple of years, but you know, maybe this is our new normal, or we want to return to normal.

I'm so tired of talking about normal. And yet here I Am talking about normal. It is not normal to sell your house in five minutes. Actually, if you do sell your house in five minutes, I believe that you're leaving money on the table. So try not to do that because why would you, I don't understand why you would leave money on the table.

It is not normal to have 16 offers on a house. I mean, that may feel like the normal for the last couple of years, but in a normal balanced market that when it happened. So a normal balanced market, I think when inventory is greater than six months, then that switches from a sellers market to a buyer's market.

So we are not even close to being in a balanced market yet because there's still so many sales in comparison to the available listings. Hopefully over the next several months, what we see is things starting to balance out a little bit. I don't think that's going to result in lower prices because we're not at that place yet.

We're not where there's so many properties that people are dropping the prices to sell their house over the competition. We are seeing some price reductions, but are those really because the sky is falling or those because sellers perhaps had an unrealistic expectation of what they could get in the market in the first place, I put my money on that one.

So I think things are good in the greater Des Moines market. If you are thinking about buying, we would love to talk to you. If you were thinking about selling, we would love to talk to you too. We don't discriminate. We would love to talk to everybody about real estate in the greater Des Moines market.

So if you have any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, or compliments, feel free to leave a comment, or I'll include a link in this where you can schedule a call and chat with me or somebody on my team. Thanks for watching. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.