OCTOBER 2021 ROCKWALL HOMEOWNER REPORT
We will start with interest rates.
We have finally gone over the 3% mark which we were staying below for a while. Rates for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage currently average 3.01% with .7% in fees and points. Freddie Mac, also known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, predicts mortgage rates will continue to increase modestly which will have an impact on pricing and demand.
As far as the number of buyers in the market, we’re continuing to see decreases in mortgage applications. It’s 13% lower than it was this same time one year ago. More good news for buyers who are still in the market to purchase.
So let’s dig into the data for September and see how the market performed.
For this local market data, I use numbers from single-family home sales in Rockwall County. These numbers are based on sales data from September.
The average sales price is at $476,842. That’s a 29.4% increase from one year ago.
The number of homes for sale is at 319 homes. We are down 18.2% in the number of homes available to buy.
Rockwall County had 231 sales in September, a 4.9% decrease over last year.
Homes sold 44.2% faster in September than they did last year, and we averaged just 24 days on the market. It’s important to note that we jumped up substantially month-over-month on this metric. Last month the average days on market was only 14 days and in one month that went up to 24 days.
Our months of inventory went up from last month and we’re at 1.5 months of inventory. This number tells us that based on current demand, if no new listings came on the market, it would take a little over a month for all the current inventory to be purchased. So we’re still, very much in seller’s market territory with only about six weeks of inventory but we’re slowly inching our way up.
We listed 319 homes in September which is 18.2% less than last year.
Our average sales price per square foot went up from last month and is at $182 per square foot, a 33.8% increase from last year.
The Takeaway
So, is the market crashing. Let’s look at the facts: We have rising interest rates, more supply on the market, more time on the market before homes go under contract, and fewer buyers. BUT, prices are still on the rise. These data points tell me that we aren’t crashing, we’re softening. I mean, since prices are still rising, we aren’t even correcting in the market yet, and I’m not so sure that will even happen.. So it’s still a great time to be a seller because the market is still on your side.
So, if you’re thinking of selling and want to know what you could sell your home for in today’s market, I want to get you that information.
One of the biggest things we know when studying prices like I do every single day is that it’s very hard when a seller’s market is driving prices up to know how much your home is actually worth.