Smyrna Vinings home buyers made 2016 a year to remember as they took advantage of what may be the last of the great low home mortgage rates. With the spike in interest rates in November and the expectation for rates to continue to rise during 2017, will we reach a pain point that starts to make Smyrna Vinings home buyers take pause and perhaps postpone their next purchase. At the moment, this doesn’t seem likely as prices are still increasing while inventory is extremely low. Expect to see 2017 start off stronger than last year, but we’ll have to see how the year unfolds as the Fed is likely to be more active and the future economic policies of the federal government could have a significant impact on the economy and housing market during 2017.

Smyrna Vinings Home Buyers - Smyrna Vinings Home Sales

This chart shows you the past 12 months of home sales at any given point. As you’ll notice, the green bar is 2007 and we were selling a fair amount more homes in 2007. Sales dropped significantly in 2008, with the drop becoming more pronounced toward the last quarter of 2008. That would be the beginning of the financial meltdown. 2009 home sales started off about 32% off the level just two years previously in January 2007. We saw Smyrna Vinings home sales continue to drop in 2009, but then leveling off in late summer and actually seeing sales pick up toward the end of the year. Typically, you expect sales to be higher in the late Spring and early Summer, but that hasn’t been the case in 2007-2010.

2016 Smyrna Vinings home sales steadily increased throughout the year, hitting new records nearly every month.

Smyrna Vinings Home Buyers - Smyrna Vinings Homes for Sale

The Active Listings chart depicts Smyrna Vinings homes currently for sale. As a general rule, we’ve seen inventory increase in the April to June range and then see the amount of Smyrna Vinings homes for sale reduce towards the end of the year. While sales and months of inventory numbers vary drastically from previous years, the one thing you can count on is that inventory decreases in the last quarter of the year, as indicated above. The big difference of course is that the overall number of homes on the market is just much less than in years past due to homes selling so quickly.

We saw an increase in the number of homes for sale in the first half of 2016 with a pretty significant drop each month in the second half through December. Sellers are starting to understand that now is a great time to sell and take advantage of the current market.

As sales are improving, we’re also seeing prices increasing as well. We’re going to continue to see more equity sellers in the market and fewer distressed properties as we move forward over the next couple years. This will result in continued low inventory levels as the number of equity sellers that can afford to sell will be outnumbered by buyers eager to take advantage of prices that are still very reasonable and interest rates that are phenomenal. If you’ve thought about selling and just aren’t sure, be sure to contact us or find out how much your home is worth. Less competition is a good thing if you’re ready to sell.

Smyrna Vinings Home Buyers - Months of Inventory Smyrna Vinings Real Estate Market

One other important statistic that we like to track is the overall health of the Smyrna Vinings home market. Months of inventory is a calculation that takes the current amount of homes for sale and divides that by the number of homes that have sold in the last 12 months. What the result means is if no more homes were listed, how many months would it take, based upon the past 12 months activity, to sell all the homes currently for sale.

A result of 6 months is considered a healthy market, less than 6 months a seller’s market and more than 6 months, a buyer’s market. What we can see from the chart above is that we have lower inventory levels right now than at any point in the past five years. Compare that with the highest amount of bloat and most severe buyer’s market in July of 2009 with significant improvement starting in mid-2010 and continuing through today.

In December, inventory levels hit nearly the same mark as last year. As prices have increased this year, we have seen a big pickup in new construction and an increase in resale activity as more home owners can afford to sell. We are a seller’s market based on current inventory levels of 2.2 months of inventory versus a balanced market of 6 months of inventory. What this means as you will continue to see prices rise from here as demand outpaces supply. Smyrna Vinings home buyers are buying homes very quickly in today’s market.

That is your Smyrna Vinings homes sales activity recap for December 2016. Hope that was helpful and don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help you sell your Smyrna Vinings home or find your new Smyrna Vinings home.

Click here if you’d like to know what your Smyrna Vinings homes is worth.

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