A significant drop of 37% in total sales for December did not come as a complete surprise. We knew a drop was coming but didn’t think it would be by this much. While most regions are seeing declines in the teens or single digits we saw bigger declines. A decline of 23% in the Tahoe basin and 28% in Tahoe Donner don’t seem to significant. The drop of 43% in greater Truckee does get my attention and a 66% drop in the Squaw / Alpine is somewhat shccking. Another interesting fact was that condo volume fell by half while single family homes sales fell by less than a third. Hard to say just yet if this is a real trend or just a brief hiccup in the market. With so much volatility in the stock market and political turmoil it may be a while before we get on a steady path again. The recent improvements in interest rates could help bring activity back to stronger levels.
4th quarter of 2018 fell somewhere in the middle of the year end total decrease and the last month big decrease. This simply confirms the majority of the decrease came in the last month or two. Our office had the same situation where we were solid busy right up to the end of November and then everything went quiet. We sold out of all our listings at the same time so that was good news for our sellers. It all worked out fine as I was ready for a little break after being super busy and finishing the build of the new house. I am currently working on a few new listings kicking off the new year in full go mode.
Year end numbers are much more in line with the industry in general. Total volume for the year is down about 10%. Once again the majority of the drop came via a 20% decline in condo sales while single family homes saw a modest 5% decline. Some fun numbers to be aware of are things like we had 4 sales in the area of more than $20 million (including one for $40M), 2 between $10-12 million, 25 between $5-10 million, 93 between $2-5 million and finally 183 between $1-2 million. Those numbers don’t sound like a market that is struggling in any way. On the flip side realize we had 172 sales at $500K or below. Believe me when I say, if we had more listings in that sub $500K price range the total sales would have been much higher.
All in all a very solid year. How 2019 goes is up in the air for now. My prediction is sales continue to slow but values hold steady. Many predictions are for values to continue to increase but at a much more modest pace. In my opinion this would be good for the market and will have a lot to do with things like interest rates and listing inventory. At this moment we are seeing rates back below 5% and inventory levels up 10% at the lake, 30% in Squaw Alpine, 20% in greater Truckee and 30% in Tahoe Donner.
Tahoe Truckee Homes had its best year ever both in terms of sales and rentals. We grew our team increasing both our gross sales and volume. The business continues to come from folks like you who are either doing repeat business with us or referring friends and family. I can not think of a better way to continue to do business and build business. Thank you all for your continued support this year, years passed and in the future. We could not do it without you.
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