Uncategorized January 4, 2012

Missoula’s neighborhood trends, the downtown / northside / old westside

Looking at the 2010 market first off I see that there were 52 residential sales with a median sales price of $175,000. The time on market for these sold homes only was 137 days. The median list price for these sold homes was $179,450 showing that these homes were selling for about 97% of their original list price. In 2010 there was just 1 foreclosure sale in this area.

 

Fast forward to 2011 and we have 58 residential sales with a median sales price of $152,950. The time on market for these sold homes only was 122 days. The median list price was $159,900 so we see that for the sold homes only they were selling for 95.6% of their original listing price. 2011 saw a rise in foreclosures, there were 6 foreclosure sales in this area.

 

So comparing 2010 to 2011 I’m seeing lots of similarities to the Rattlesnake market report that I just completed as well. We’ve got a slight uptick in volume of sales but a drop in median values. Volume was up 11.5% while median sales price dropped by 12.6%… a pretty sharp decrease. Foreclosure sales have a bit of an impact here on this but not a large one. Time on market dropped back a bit and we see that those who sold their homes had to reduce their prices a little further than they did in the year past. This makes sense to me comparing 2011 to 2010 simply because this was one area that was highly influenced by the first time home buyer tax credit. In 2010 buyers were rushing to get homes and paying a little more by the late spring just to tie a house up, in 2011 there was no incentive to buy homes so the market returned to a more “normal” stage. What’s good to see is that the 2011 volume was up despite no tax-credit incentives to buy though.

 

Once again, I can’t pull the 2010 absorption rates which unfortunately is a much more true picture of the market as it takes active and under contract homes into account. Looking at the 2011 absorption rates when calculated over the last 12 months I’m pulling a current number of 7.86 months worth of inventory listed for sale. This is probably a very low and optimistic number right now as there are presumably a lot of homes waiting to hit the market until spring arrives.

 

Looking forward I think that foreclosures in this area could come up and start to play a bigger role in 2011. Additionally many of these houses that were selling above their probable fair market value in 2010 have adjusted back down in 2011, that could continue on for 2012 and maybe beyond. Activity should stay roughly the same and until national financing rules change all of the built-up condos in this area will remain as rentals.