Here are the stats from the first quarter of the 2021 market.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, our housing market is incredibly fast-paced and competitive at the moment. Today we’ll take a look back on the stats from the first quarter of this year and use those to predict what we can expect from the year to come.
On average, a home put on the market took 22 days to receive an offer, which is 50% faster than in March of 2020. Offers that include new construction and existing homes were accepted even faster, with an average of 14 days. I thought those numbers seemed a little high, considering that, for the homes we’ve sold since January of this year, our brokerage had an average of four days on market. That’s why I looked across the valley to the more popular areas for buyers. Areas like north and southeast Boise, Eagle, Meridian, and Nampa all averaged around four or five days on market.
The median price for Ada County overall is $467,325, which is a new record. The median price for existing homes is $475,000, which is up 35% over last year. A contributing factor to this jump in median price is that on average, existing homes sold for around $18,000 over list price.
"We have enough demand to soak up incoming inventory for a long time."
Time and time again, homes are going live on the market, getting multiple offers, and wind up selling for more than their asking prices. That, in combination with the restriction on inventory and high demand, is pushing prices up. One of our agents recently competed against 12 other offers and ended up winning with a bid for over $100,000 more than asking price; her buyers won the bid by just $5,000.
Interest rates are beginning to creep upward again, though they are still incredibly low at just over 3%. Low rates continue to drive buyer demand, alongside rising rental costs. Our new radio station KTVB reported that Boise rent has gone up by 16% since March of 2020 and rose by 3.4% specifically in March of this year.
Even though home prices are on the rise, the demand is still high, and we anticipate demand will continue for quite some time due to our low inventory, which is down 79% year over year. We’ve seen more homes come onto the market in the last couple of months. In March, we had 295 homes available, which is a small number, but that’s up by 57% over February. Currently, we have 0.5 months of supply, meaning that if nothing else came on the market, it would take just two weeks to sell everything we have.
Many have been discussing how much construction is going on in the valley, wondering how we can absorb this new inventory and whether the new inventory will burst the bubble. The truth of the matter is that we’ve had several years of decreasing inventory, and builders weren’t building much after the 2008 crash; we have enough demand to soak it all up.
If you or someone you know is thinking about buying or selling a home, please feel free to give me a call. I’ll answer any questions you have and guide you through the process so that you can find success.