We've just taken a look at the trends in the Iron County market, as provided by the Utah Association of REALTORS®, and they certainly make interesting reading.
The most interesting aspect, in spite of widespread growing pressure on home prices, is that our market continues to flourish across a wide range of key metrics.
New listings have risen by 5.4% in the past year, while pending sales have improved by 11.3% and closed sales are demonstrating an impressive 21.7% year-on-year increase.
Despite widely reported price pressures nationally, as wages struggle to keep up with home price inflation, we've seen good increases in both median (10.5%) and average (14.7%) sales price.
And sellers are also receiving better average returns, as the percentage of original list price received figure has grown by 0.8% in the past 12 months.
Once again, the growth in supply has failed to keep up with demand and we're still seeing overall falls in inventory of homes for sale (a year-on-year drop of 12.1%) and, possibly even more significantly, months supply of inventory has fallen by 25.5% to just 4.1 months.
All that being said, there is a small indication of buyers being more cautious, in that we've seen an annual rise of 4.3% in the average number of days a home is for sale in our market (72 days).
While extremely encouraging, these great figures shouldn't disguise the important underlying trend that buyers are becoming more powerful in their negotiations, and we can expect the current trends to come under more pressure in the coming months.
Right now, however, it's very clearly a fantastic time to be selling your home while our market continues to flourish. Although national trends are important, and are likely to have a progressive effect here in Iron County, we are arguably somewhat sheltered by the fact that so many are moving from the more troubled markets, such as Southern California, to make our wonderful area their home.
As ever, please don't hesitate to contact us today for an informal discussion of the best options in your situation and how to make what promises to be another busy fall/winter market work very much in your favor.
