Welcome to the Market Update for Newcastle- July 2022.
It has been an interesting year so far across all markets. With the rising home values throughout 2021 and into 2022 meeting head on with the continued supply issues, rising gas prices, and rising mortgage rates, we’ve seen many opine about the health of the real estate market and the possibility of a bubble. What we have been seeing is more of a correction, or a return to more normalized levels of buying and selling. Let’s take a closer look.
Median Sales Price – Unlike other cities on the Eastside, Newcastle saw a steady increase in median sales price from January up to June. July saw a 15% drop to $1.54M. This drop was noticeable, but similar to the 13% drop we saw in July 2021. Still, July 2022 median sales price was still 38% over 2021.
Home Sales – We peaked at 18 sales closing in May and have since declined to 12 in July. At the same time we have seen a steady influx of homes coming on to the market. As of July, the new homes listed outpaced sales by about 2x for the second month in a row.
Price per Sqft – This measure is affected by many factors, as you can imagine. The peak for this year was in April at $604 and has settled in at $553 for July.
Sales Price/List Price ratio – Throughout all of 2021 we saw the median sales price of homes come in above the listing price until July. With the average mortgage rate never peaking above 3.18% Buyers’ mortgage dollars had more buying power. In March of 2022 is when we started to experience the less than gradual rise in mortgage rates. Consequently, the market had to react with sellers re-adjusting their expectations. As a result, we have seen a noticeable decline in the Sales Price-to-List Price ratio from 125% in February to 98.9% of list price in July.
