What happened in August in the Southern Utah Real Estate Market!

August has come and gone, so let’s take a look at what happened in the Greater St. George area and Hurricane Valley in the month of August

Before we get started I would also like to thank the following for their closed transactions in August:

1. Rick and Tatine Jenkins (sold listing)
2. Rebekah Andrus (sold listing)
3. Kevin and Nichole Cowley (sold listing)

Rick and Tatine Jenkins are third time customers and I want to thank them for their loyalty.

I am curious if this is information is interesting and or helpful to you. I am going to do a contest, and I will post the results later this month or next month. If you read this blog email me at joe@joelangston.com and put “contest” in the subject line. The winner gets some free movie tickets.

If you know of anyone else that might benefit from this information with their permission of course, please send me an email with the subject line “referral” to joe@joelangston.com with their name and email address, and I will put them on the list. Whoever provides the most referrals gets movie tickets too.

One more thought. Take a look at the business blog section of this site. Dr. Dick Harper is a personal friend and mentor of mine, and he is brilliant. Take a look at his blog, Dr. Dick’s Journey. He has provided a lot of the information I have used on this blog of late, and you will be well rewarded by taking a look at his posts. No, I am not a weirdo; Dixie Zumba Girls is my wife’s blog. She and a couple of her friends teach a dance exercise class called Zumba. If you know anyone interested in that, she has classes at several different locations, and she usually high-lights a routine on her blog.

I must remind you these stats are according to the Washington County Board of Realtors MLS and do not take into account any private sells. As many of you know, Utah is a non-disclosure state, (That means the county does not record prices of sold homes, only the MLS system does) so if I try to start introducing private sell data, I will struggle with completeness and accurate. So, for the time being, I will stick only to data from the Washington County Board of Realtors MLS.

This data covers the Greater St. George area: (St. George, Santa Clara, Washington, Ivins) and the Hurricane Valley: (Hurricane, La Verkin, Toquerville). For the purpose of this blog, homes refer to single family houses, condos, town homes and new construction. I have not included any provisions for time shares, trailers, mobile or manufactured homes. That being said, this is what happened in August. You can see the July comparison in parenthesis.

Total Market Activity on homes in August

Active Listings: 2,385 (July 2,465)
New Listings: 440 (July 524) significant dip
Sold Listings: 149 (July 150)
Months of Inventory: 16.01 (July 16.43)

Homes priced up to $150,000

Active Listings: 182 (July 208)
New Listings: 34 (July 35)
Sold Listings: 18 (July 23)
Months of Inventory: 10.11 (July 9.04)

Homes priced from $150,001 to $200,000

Active Listings: 333 (July 334)
New Listings: 87 (July 69)
Sold Listings: 25 (July 28)
Months of Inventory: 13.32 (July 11.93)

Homes priced from $200,001 to $250,000

Active Listings: 382 (July 406)
New Listings: 106 (July 83)
Sold Listings: 35 (July 34)
Months of Inventory: 10.91 (July 11.94)

Homes priced from $250,001 to $300,000

Active Listings: 350 (July 366)
New Listings: 49 (July 97) wow, big dip
Sold Listings: 29 (July 22)
Months of Inventory: 12.07 (July 16.64)

Homes priced from $300,001 to $350,000

Active Listings: 239 (July 243)
New Listings: 31 (July 73) significant dip, thank heaven
Sold Listings: 18 (July 14)
Months of Inventory: 13.28 (July 17.36)

Homes priced from $350,001 to $400,000

Active Listings: 183 (July 184)
New Listings: 36 (July 39)
Sold Listings: 8 (July 11)
Months of Inventory: 22.88 (July 16.73)

Homes priced from $400,001 to $450,000

Active Listings: 108 (July 108)
New Listings: 21 (July 27)
Sold Listings: 3 (July 5)
Months of Inventory: 36.00 (July 21.60)

Homes priced from $450,001 to $500,000

Active Listings: 127 (July 135)
New Listings: 8 (July 21)
Sold Listings: 1 (July 4)
Months of Inventory: 127.00 (July 33.75) Yikes! Get a load at this absorption.

Homes priced from $500,001 to $550,000

Active Listings: 70 (July 71)
New Listings: 8 (July 15)
Sold Listings: 0 (July 1)
Months of Inventory: No Sales in August (July 71.00) Yea, that means it worse than 71.

Homes priced from $550,001 to $600,000

Active Listings: 76 (July 74)
New Listings: 12 (July 17)
Sold Listings: 2 (July 2)
Months of Inventory: 38.00 (July 37.00)

Homes priced from $600,001 to $650,000

Active Listings: 33 (July 39)
New Listings: 5 (July 7)
Sold Listings: 2 (July 1)
Months of Inventory: 16.50 (July 39.00) Looky here, Progress!

Homes priced from $650,001 to $700,000

Active Listings: 49 (July 47)
New Listings: 7 (July 13)
Sold Listings: 3 (July 0)
Months of Inventory: 16.33 (No Sales in July) Here too!

Homes priced from $700,001 to $750,000

Active Listings: 21 (July 20)
New Listings: 7 (July 4)
Sold Listings: 0 (July 0)
Months of Inventory: No Sales in August (No Sales in July) No wonder that listing hasn’t sold!

Homes priced from $750,001 to $800,000

Active Listings: 31(July 28)
New Listings: 5 (July 2)
Sold Listings: 0 (July 1)
Months of Inventory: No Sales in August (28.00 July)

Homes priced from $800,001 and up

Active Listings: 201 (July 202)
New Listings: 24 (July 22)
Sold Listings: 5 (July 4) Wow! Some sales!
Months of Inventory: 40.20 (July 50.50)

The following information is for building lots in the same general area as the housing data listed above.

All Building Lots in the Greater St. George and Hurricane Valley

Active Listings: 1410 (1486 July)
New Listings: 123 (99 July)
Sold Listings: 7 (26 July)
Months of Inventory: 201 (57 July)

Here are the data ranges:

Building lots up to $100,000

Active Listings: 468 (527 July)
New Listings: 59 (33 July)
Sold Listings: 5 (20 July)
Months of Inventory: 201 (57 July) Just a decade and a half or so of inventory!

Building lots from $100,001 to $150,000

Active Listings: 405 (414 July)
New Listings: 28 (24 July)
Sold Listings: 0 (3 July)
Months of Inventory: No sales (138 July)

Building lots from $150,001 to $200,000

Active Listings: 207 (209 July)
New Listings: 14 (8 July)
Sold Listings: 2 (1 July)
Months of Inventory: 104 (209 July)

Building lots from $200,000 and up

Active Listings: 330 (336 July)
New Listings: 22 (34 July)
Sold Listings: 0 (2 July)
Months of Inventory: No sales (168 July) All I can say is YIKES!

Short Sales and Foreclosures

I am currently not taking too many more short sell listings unless it is payment in full to the first and shorting a second in a minor way. The problems is when you get too far apart, the national investors, think that they would rather foreclose than go through the gymnastics of putting the deal together, and in their minds get ripped off. Formerly, I was able to get 50-60% of mine to work out, but recently, through some unfortunate circumstances and some unqualified buyers my ratios have dipped dramatically. When representing a buyer, I still would not hesitate to make an offer on an approved short sell; it is just getting it to that point that is the challenge. If you are a buyer making an offer on an unapproved short sell, just be ready to wait for several weeks for about a 35% change of having the transaction work.

Foreclosures have really picked up lately. There are some good deals out there right now. Not the late night buy a house for $50, type deals, but homes that make sense and you can not build for what they are selling them for. I made two strong offers at the end of August for clients, and it looks like we did not get either deal to work, due to multiple offers! If you find a good foreclosure and the numbers make sense, make a good offer. If you do not make a good offer, expect to miss them, because multiple offers are coming.

As always, if you need anything or know someone who does, get a hold of me, I would love to help.