November 2020 Housing Market Update

Happy Veterans Day! I wanted to take the time out to wish any and all service members and their family members a day to indulge as we recognize their contribution to the country with their service. I know that I wouldn't be able to do the things that I enjoy in the country without the sacrifices of our military servicemen and women!

If you didn't get a chance to read my previous update from last month, I made a BOLD, yet not so bold prediction, about the number of homes that I thought would be available for sale on the market this month. This month I wanted to follow up that prediction with the stats to back up whether I was correct or not with my prediction.  Unlike many others in the industry who want you to believe whatever they say and believe that you should take their word as fact, I like to provide people with real data and stats to back up the things that I say. In doing so, you not only become a more informed and educated consumer, but it builds trust that if you're getting your information from me that it's reliable. 

So let's dive into how the market is doing by first taking a glance at the number of homes available for sale. Whenever someone asks me, "How's the Market" doing, one of the first indicators that I give them is the number of homes that are currently available for sale. The reason is the simple economic principle of supply and demand. The more homes that are available on the market, the better things are usually playing out to the buyer's benefit because they have many options available on the market and can generally take their time to be picky about the home they purchase.  In today's market, the combination of historically low-interest rates and the pandemic keeping people at home more often seems to be having a boom effect on the real estate market. 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:

   
          

As the chart shows, at the end of last month, we finished with only 2727 homes available for sale on the MLS in the entire Greater Baton Rouge marketplace. That ladies and gentlemen is a historic low point for the number of homes available for sale in the history of our market since we've been tracking the statistic. Just as I predicted, we currently have fewer homes on the market than at any point in our area's history! Ultimately, what this means is that if you're a seller, you're in one of the best seller's markets in the history of the area because buyers have the fewest number of options available ever. If you're a buyer, you can still find the home that you're looking for and if you do, it is in your best interest to put in your best offer as quickly as possible to ensure you don't miss out on the home that fits your family's needs!

I also wanted to bring one more piece of information to the table this month. Another market indicator that we often look at 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:



 

The craziest thing to me is that both Ascension and Livingston Parish are showing below two months' inventory. In a balanced market, we'd like to see these numbers somewhere in between about 3.5 - 5 months of inventory. As you can see, there just aren't that many homes that are currently available for buyers compared to previous years where the market was way more balanced. If you would like a personal consultation on what your real estate goals are, let me know with a call or a text so that we can help you accomplish your real estate dreams!

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