We have noticed some encouraging changes in Prescott area real estate recently. Geoff Hyland gives you the latest market update.

A couple of notable changes have occured here recently.

Overall inventory in our marketplace did peak and those numbers continue to come down.

Interestingly, I did some research going back to the pre-Covid market in 2019. On average, there have actually been about 200 fewer homes on the market for the past three months, compared with October 2019.

So, from an overall perspective, our inventory numbers are still down in comparison with what we might call the last normal market.

Demand is down a little bit as well, comparing it to 2019. But when you look at the September, October, November numbers from 2019, there was about a three-month supply in our marketplace. Nobody one was complaining, life was going on. It was a good market for both sellers and buyers.

In the last few months, we have been bouncing back and forth between a 2.75 and 3 month supply of homes. To give you some context, a normal real estate market is considered by most experts to have between a 5 and 7 month supply.

Year-on-year, our October pending sales were down by about 27% and by 11.85%, compared to September 2022.

We are seeing some great market activity right now. Part of the reason is that, in spite of the Fed raising another 75 basis points, we are actually seeing some relief in mortgage interest rates.

There's an influx of buyer activity right now. Some buyers have been locking home loans in the mid-six range. Others have been getting some closing cost assistance for a couple of points and getting down as low as 5.99%.

So we appear to be getting some rate relief right now, which is creating some fabulous opportunities for our buyers. If you have any questions about that, please reach out to us. We have a great lending partner we'd love to refer you to, who can give you an idea as to what the rate might be for you (it does change on a daily basis).

As for overall values in the marketplace, last month we talked about the anomaly in Prescott of 23 homes that sold for over $1 million in September.

That led to some craziness in our charts but, taking those numbers out and focusing on last month, sold values fell by about 5% overall. Prescott Valley stayed pretty level, but Prescott did show about a 5% drop (+/-) without the September anomaly. Chino Valley saw a similar couple of high dollar anomalies in sales, so that area spiked a little bit (not a trend we expect to see long term).

Overall there are still buyers and sellers in the marketplace, we've got some relief on interest rates and we are still transacting on a daily basis.

If you're a buyer with questions about interest rates or a seller curious about what your home value is right now, or have any other questions, we'd love to hear from you. You can contact me on my direct line at 928-237-4425.

Best wishes,

Geoff

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