Mid-Year Cedar City Housing Market

Cedar City’s housing market can be fickle! You know what? Any housing market can; but, for now, sellers continue to enjoy a market advantage over buyers here. When you watch the market as closely as I do, it can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Cedar City Market Summary TableIt's Still a Sellers' Market

Why do sellers still have the advantage? In Cedar City we have less than a six-month supply of inventory. In part, it’s a simple matter of supply and demand.

Some are predicting a market crash. The market can’t possibly hike as high as ours has and not eventually plummet to the ground, right? Well, now, wait a minute. I beg to differ. While some area’s housing markets rocket to the sky and are flowing back down to the ground, the Cedar City market grew more gradually, as did other communities real estate markets surrounding Cedar City. Sure, it might level out, but we’re not seeing outrageous numbers that bring visions of bubbles bursting (at least in my head).

The Utah economy is strong. Interest rates are still great. Unemployment is low and housing prices have increased an average of about 3.5 percent since the market began to recover after the recession. Now, before you start feeling confused about why housing prices seem to be so high right now, remember I said an average. That’s the key word here.

Some years the market increases by 2%. Some years we see a 12% increase. I have found consistently when you had them up and divide the number by the number of years considered, the average is about 3.5%. We experienced some years of deep decline. Historically, the housing industry self-corrects. I will say, it could begin to soften in the near future.

Money Flows Up I-15

Here’s the thing, money flows up and down the I-15 corridor.

When California’s market softens, we see Las Vegas start to dip, then Mesquite, then St. George and it eventually makes its way to Cedar City. We are already seeing a slight decline coming our way. Remember the old adage “the bigger they are, the harder they fall?” You can apply that to Cedar City too. We didn’t experience some of the insane increases other areas did, so our market isn’t likely to dive (although it will undoubtedly level out at some point). I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I did, you would be the first to know!

Mid-Year Market Check-Up

In the interest of keeping this simple, let’s look at the numbers January through the end of July. We’ll compare this year to 2018. This year, 618 homes sold in the first seven months. Last year a total of 688 homes had sold. That’s a negative difference of 10.2% based on figures provided by our local Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

By the end of July, the average sold price of a home was $234,978 compared to $225,972 in 2018. That’s a 3.99% increase. Remember though, that’s only one month. To get a better picture of the market trend look at the seven-month stretch.

The average sale price from January to July was $224,620 compared to $217,170 in 2018. So this year, we saw a solid 3.43% increase in home prices. (See table Summary Statistics).

It’s interesting to note that while the prices of homes was up in July this year (105) compared to last (124) decreased by 15.3%.The slowing trend began in January and continued through July. The YTD home sales by the end of July this year was 618 compared to 688 sold by this time in 2018 (a 10.2% decrease). Homes did sell an average of 21.82% faster during the period of consideration this year (86 cumulative days on the market) compared to last (110).

Once again, this is a brief evaluation of a short period of time. I’m not ready to call any major changes, but I’m always watching and invite you to watch too! The bottom line, the market is steady for now, home sellers still have an advantage; but, with mortgage rates at 3.794% for a 30-year-fixed rate there are some definite advantages for buyers too.

If you have any questions about the market or real estate in general, I invite you to call, text or email!

Summary Statistics

Jul-19

Jul-18

% Chg

2019 YTD

2018 YTD

% Chg

Absorption Rate

4.02

4.35

-7.59

3.62

4.13

-12.35

Average List Price

$304,044

$300,601

1.15

$269,401

$262,129

2.77

Median List Price

$249,924

$248,450

0.59

$236,000

$229,500

2.83

Average Sale Price

$234,978

$225,972

3.99

$224,620

$217,170

3.43

Median Sale Price

$223,400

$215,000

3.91

$212,250

$205,000

3.54

Average CDOM

86

110

-21.82

N/A

N/A

N/A

Median CDOM

68

73

-6.85

80

80

0.00

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