How’s the market? The first look at Albuquerque’s March data
(Transcript Snippet):
“Tego:
Tracy, first off we got to talk about March,
Tracy:
Of course, this data medic here. How could we not talk about March? So March is typically the kickoff to our biggest selling season, right? We start getting some warm weather. We had some snow. We also had some warm weather in March. So the warm days really get people thinking about housing. And what happens
Tego:
Traditionally is the homes as home start to come on the market, usually seasonally, we see most people start listing them in March. April is usually a huge month, month for homes coming on. The market may is usually a very strong month for new listings or people, you know, saying, okay, it’s time to put the home on the market. And of course last, you know, April, halfway through March and of course, April and may last year
Tracy:
It was a bust. We were, we were shut down pretty much. I mean, it was a big, we were all home trying to figure out what was next. Yeah.
Tego:
And so what happened was there was that big pause in a number of homes coming on the market and just statistically, we’ve just never caught up. And so now we’re down to this just ridiculously low number of homes available and anybody that’s in the market or, you know, paying attention to it at all. Especially if you’re a buyer, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s tough out there cause good homes are going. I mean, literally we’re not even talking days on market, right. We’re talking hours on market. And in many cases, especially those really great homes that are ready to go. Right. Exactly. Why are you laughing at me?
Tracy:
I’m laughing because we’ve been trying to buy a house ourselves. Oh. And you know, experiencing it from a buyer side. Right. You’re laughing, you’re laughing because every time we work, you know, I think every time we are buyers or sellers of properties, which we do we experienced the same things, our clients experience, and it’s hard, it’s hard to be a buyer. It’s hard to be a seller. And I really appreciate that we do buy and sell houses. And even if it’s a house that we’re going to keep as a rental, or if it’s one that we’re going to have as a second home or something, it’s still, it’s, it’s a tough process to
Tego:
No, it is in, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And it, it’s interesting that you get, you get to put yourself in the shoes of our clients and what they’re dealing with every time. So so a couple things that really, I just want to hit on it. We’re just like I was joking. I don’t know if you saw my Facebook live. Of course you watched my first of course you did.
Tracy :
I liked it. I don’t think I know I watched it. I’m just teasing.
Tego:
You knew what it said. Yeah.
Tracy:
I know every day after coffee, everything that’s going on in the real estate world.
Tego:
Yeah. The, the thing I was joking about, I said, I, I said, well, I’m not going to do that. I looked at it on the first and I said, well, I’m not going to do this on the first cause everybody just think I’m joking. Right. April fool’s joke. But then the one that really resonated or jumped out at me was percent of list price, Tracy. So this
Tracy:
Last list price.
Tego:
Yeah. So that’s a stat that, you know, you and I, and, and anybody that’s, you know, experienced in the real estate market pays attention to and what it is is, and it gives you an idea on an average, how much homes are being discounted off of the list price when they closed, when they
Tracy:
Go into closed status
Tego:
To final sale price. Right. Right. And it has, it’s an all time high. It’s not only an all time high it’s over a hundred percent. Oh boy. For the first time ever, even, even if we go back to, you know, Oh five when things were kind of insane it’s over a hundred percent. So, so on average homes are selling over list price across the board.
Tracy:
Right. An important thing for home buyers to know. Right. If they think that they can go in and make an offer on house and get something below list price accepted, it’s probably not going to happen. Well, let’s be
Tego:
Just fair about that because there are homes that go on the market and they’re just priced too high. Right. Right. And so, yeah. I mean maybe, you know, but, but,
Tracy:
But the average is that they’re selling for above what they’re being listed for. So important thing for buyers to know. So as they’re planning their strategies with their realtor, they know what, what the market’s like,
Tego:
Just, you know, I think this kind of goes without saying average price, median price, average price per square foot. All of them are at all time highs in our market. Average price per square foot is the one that I really like to watch because there’s a better gauge of, you know, how the market’s moving and average price per square foot. Now for March close link closings was $155 per square foot. And you put that in just perspective March of last year. That’s 14% less. I mean, higher.
Tracy:
Yeah. You know, what’s interesting about that. When you think about 155, a square foot, you can’t build a house for 155, a square foot on land right now. But when you watch those TV shows on Bravo or wherever, you know, million dollar listing, New York million dollar listing LA or all those other home shows that are doing house house shows, buying and selling. I mean, sometimes they’re talking like 1500 a square foot on those shows. Right. So when you think about affordability in New Mexico, compared to a lot of States around us, including Texas, Colorado, Arizona, our homes are way more affordable without a doubt.
Tego:
Yeah. I mean, if you look at comparable markets to us, Phoenix, Tucson, Colorado Springs, Denver yeah. San Antonio. I mean, I know people are going to say, well, that’s not really the same as like, okay. But, but I’m just saying, you know, from an affordability stand point, we’re not talking affordable housing, but just an affordability standpoint, we are still better than most of those markets. The only one that’s better than us as LTL
Tracy:
And affordability means how much of take home income you have to use towards housing.
Tego:
Yeah. And to clarify that, that that’s based on the median income of the market too. So it’s gauging it to what the median take-home income is in Albuquerque to clarify that. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not the median take-home income in Manhattan. Right.
Tracy:
Right. But when you look at Denver, you know, how much of their take home they have to use towards housing versus how much of our take home, you know, it’s, it’s still very affordable here even with prices up.
Tego:
So a couple of things I wanted to mention to folks, if you know, you want to geek out on market data and look at some of the trends you can, you’re laughing. Well, Hey, that’s what I do. I geek out on market data. If you go to our website at welcome home, abq.com. It is our main website. We have a couple of websites, but there’s a tab called market and I’ve got all kinds of stuff there. I’ve got it by month, by year, by longterm trends, by weekly trends, you can see it all there. If you want it
Tracy:
By neighborhood. Can you go in, dig down to, so if someone wants to kind of look up generally their area of town
Tego:
By zip code, by zip code, by zip code, you can, you can dig into zip code, you know, and that’s like, we’ve talked about, okay, what’s the hottest zip code in Albuquerque. We were saying a seven one 21. Right. Is, is the, the tightest supply versus demand in the whole market right now.