December 2020 Housing Market Update

Happy Holidays, I hope that you and your family have been safe and healthy throughout the festive season! Locally we've gone back to phase two with the coronavirus spiking throughout the country. In these crazy times, it was good to have a day of thanks and reflection to appreciate the things that we value most. If this year has taught us anything, it is that we should all take the time to be grateful and reflect on the positives we have in life and enjoy our days.

In October we had a new record low on the number of houses available on the market from any point and time of us keeping track of the data. We even had fewer houses on the market than after Hurricane Katrina hit southeast Louisiana hard and many people came to Baton Rouge in 2006. The trend of low housing inventory continued in November with a new record low being set for the number of houses available for sale at 2583. Here are the numbers for the entire MLS, East Baton Rouge Parish, Ascension Parish, and Livingston Parish all on one chart so we can compare them equally:

   

Number of Home Available for Sale Comparision          

As the chart shows, we are at a new low for the number of houses available for sale and this trend has been pretty consistent throughout the year. With the market having such a low supply of homes available, the options that buyers have available for purchase are slim. This very much leans to the market currently being a seller's market. If you are currently in the market to purchase a home, it's a great idea to quickly identify what properties that would fit you and your family's needs, go out to look at them as early as possible from when they come on the market, and make a good offer to try to secure the home under contract as quickly as you can.

Another market indicator that we cover with our updates is the "Months Supply" statistic. Essentially this information tells us that if we were to take the number of homes that are currently available on the market and didn't add a single home to that group, how many months would it take for all of the homes available to sell. Let's take a look into how the Month's Supply stacks up to this time over the last two years:



 

Both Ascension and Livingston Parish are still showing below two months' inventory levels. In a balanced market, we'd like to see these numbers somewhere in between about 3.5 - 5 months of inventory. I put up a five-year comparison so you can see the trends of the market over a decent amount of time. If you compare the data in the chart above from January 2015 to right now, it would literally take about half the time for the supply to be sold in today's market when compared to 5 years ago.

With the supply being at historic lows for the market I wanted to give you an indication of how the values of homes are doing in the market over the last five years as well. The chart below gives us a look at the average sales price for homes over the last five years so you can compare the entire Greater Baton Rouge Market to the three most popular parishes.



As always I want to make you aware that I've created a special website where you can view interactive charts of historical data for the Greater Baton Rouge real estate market. The graphs are always live and updated automatically monthly where you can see the real stats for what's going on in the real estate market and not just take someone's word for it! You can check out the data and see what's going on in your area by clicking the button below!

Rinaldi Jacobs Jr., e-PRO®, PSA
REALTOR® & Marketing eXpert
eXp Realty, LLC
2900 Westfork Dr, Ste 401
Baton Rouge, LA 70827
Office: 225-412-9982 ext 151
Direct: 225-330-7059
Rinaldi@225avenues.com
Licensed in Louisiana