I Witnessed the Housing Market FLIP Overnight

I don't know if you saw this or not, but existing home sales just took a major turn. And there's so many markets in the U.S. that just hit pre-pandemic levels of homes for sale. So what are you gonna use all of this information for to go out there and stack more listings over the next couple of months? I'm Ricky Caruth, and that's exactly what we're gonna talk about in this video. This is your Wednesday real estate update. Ooh, I can't tell you how excited I am about this next year and the way that things are shaping up at the end of this year. It's beautiful. Let's dive into the data here. What's really interesting is that existing home sales grew 3.4% in October, right? But it grew 2.9% year over year. And it was the first year over year gain since July, 2021. Right here, existing home sales come 3.4% to the annual adjusted rate of 3.96 million. So just under 4 million. Remember, 2008 was 4.1 million. We're below 2008. Sales advanced 2.9% from one year ago, the first year over year increase in more than three years, ladies and gentlemen. The median existing home sales price went up 4% from October, 2023. That's the 16th consecutive month of year over year gains. All right, inventory of unsold existing home edged higher by 0.7% from the prior month to 1.37 million at the end of October, equivalent of 4.2 months. So when you look at the months of inventory, we're at 4.2 months, which is higher. It was 3.6 months back in October, 2023. But remember, between five and six months is balanced. Anything over six months by definition is a buyer's market. So as a country, we're still somewhat in a seller's market, but we're moving towards a balanced market. So when we look at these markets, there's 200 major markets in the US, okay? This is where active inventory level stands in the 200 largest metro areas compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. So the brown here indicates that it's below 2019 levels. The green indicates that it's above 2019 levels. So back in 20, all 200 metro larger US markets were below. In 2021, October, we were still below. October 22, it crept up to 14 markets out of the 200 were above pre-pandemic levels of inventory. Okay, nothing crazy. The next year, 2023, it's 17 markets are now above pre-pandemic levels of inventory. Not a big jump. Then, oh, 2024, October, it jumped from 17 to 54. So we've seen a big jump from 2023 to 2024 to 54 out of the 200 markets are now above pre-pandemic levels. There's nothing to freak out about at all. We're just getting back to a balanced market. Now, there are people out there who claim that we're moving into a very strongly buyer's market where we've got all these months of inventory that's above six months or days in the market, whatever people are looking at. But I'm here to tell you, there's only one outlier market that I believe is just like a crazy buyer's market right now and that is Miami. If you look at the whole country, we are around 40 days on the market. When you look at supplies, months of supply of inventory in the country, we're at three, like here it's got 15 weeks of supply. Let's see if that changes, if it changes to 12 weeks. This has got 16, so that's like 16.3, so that's like 4.2 right there. So that's what they said, what NAR said, 4.2 months of inventory, so that's pretty right on line. When you go to a Miami, Florida, it shoots up. It's got 10 months of inventory. That's a strong buyer's market. When we look at days on the market there, 70 days on the market, okay? This is an outlier, because when you look at some of these other markets, like I've heard Myrtle Beach was one people are looking at. Yeah, the days on the market are higher, but when you look at the months of supply of inventory, 25, that is kind of into a buyer's, let's see, 25, that would be, that's five, six, six and a half months. So that's a buyer's market, not as crazy as having 10 months of inventory, but you are into a buyer's market right there. You look at Austin, Texas, so they're at five, six months, six months of inventory, so they're in a buyer's market, not as extreme as Miami, but when you look at some of these markets, yeah, they're kind of teetering towards a buyer's market, but the thing is, is you can't get caught up in this and feel like the pendulum's just gonna go all the way the other way, because it's not. Just like the existing home sales took a turn the first positive year-over-year movement in three years, we are literally at the bottom. It can't go down anymore. Now, never say never, because anything can happen. You know, another thing like COVID could come through or a war could happen. There's a lot of uncertainties of things that could happen, but when you look historically, like this is as low as 1995 when it comes to the number of transactions. If you look at home builders, new family homes declined 17.3% in October, right? To 610,000 units seasonally adjusted, right? That's from September, 2024, right? 17% just in a month. The new home sales reflect a 9.4% decline year-over-year, so about 90, 10% year-over-year, 17% month-over-month, but it's very deceiving because when you look at it, when you look at the South, the East, the Midwest, and the Northeast, and you look at the home sale decline, it was 19.7% drop in the South, 1.3% in the West, right? But that was offset by an increase of sales of 35% in the Northeast and 15.9% in the Midwest, right? When you look at month-over-month, the new home sales were impacted by a decrease of 27% in the South, 9% in the West, but that was offset by a 53.3% increase in the Northeast and 1.4% in the Midwest. So really, Tony, it is local. You guys have to get into the local game and understand what's happening in your market and pay attention to the data. And when you're watching the data all the time like I am, when it's coming through, you just become so ingrained with what's happening and it just comes out second nature when you're talking to your clients. The median new home's price was $437,300, up 2.6% from September, and a 4.7% increase year-over-year. Let's see, the new construction remains a vital part of the market, especially in areas with low existing home inventory, which that is going to continue. The new existing single-family home inventory was a level of 481,000, up 8.8%. So it's up 8.8% year-over-year inventory of new homes. Okay, that is a good thing because builders, the higher the inventory goes, the more desperate they get and the better deals they're gonna give, the more incentives they're gonna give, the more opportunities you have to present those to people in the market, and now you become the hero. I did a whole video about this Monday. I'll put a link in the description. I'll also link it at the end of this video. You can download the script and use that entire strategy. But they've got 9.5 months of inventory, right, at the current building pace. Among the given inventory, ready-to-occupy inventory was 116,000 homes are ready-to-occupy. Guys, this is the opportunity right this second, in my opinion. Let's see what Zillow said. They have four predictions of the U.S. housing market in 2025, okay? They predict U.S. housing market will keep shifting. The real estate firm says the average home value rose 2.6% annually in October. We saw that. It says home buying activity should pick up after a long slump, despite choppiness in mortgage rates. Between stubborn high mortgage rates and elevated prices, homebuyers had a tough time navigating the housing market in 24. The home value rate climbed to 359,000 in October, up 2.6 annually. And per Freddie Mac, okay, we're under 7% on interest rates. Zillow predicts a more active market and more buyers gaining the upper hand. But those hoping to buy or even refinance should buckle up for a bumpy ride and stay ready to move when conditions are right. How are you supposed to know when conditions are right? They predict home prices will rise by 2.6% in 2025, while existing home sales will notch 4.3 million, up from the 4 million sales it expects this year. When you pile all this together and you look at the fact of the number of days on the market. So let's go back and look at the days on the market. Let's see, we're still in Austin. So 70 days on the market. So when you look at the entire country, and it's about 40 days on the market across the country. So you gotta dig into your specific markets, right? Look at active inventory, right? So if you look at new listings, new listings coming on the market, you'll see that we're not too different from where we were in the past few years. We're actually a lot lower than 21 and 22. We're just a little bit higher really from 2023. We're basically dead even right now. We've been a little higher all year kind of following the same trend. So it's like, okay, new listings are coming on at about the same rate, a little higher. Why do we have so many more active listings? And the fact is, is that they're taking so much longer to sell. So you see active listings. So new listings are about the same coming on, a little higher, but active listings are a lot higher. Why? Because the days on the market have increased. So days on the market increasing slows the sales process down and inventory is able to build on the market and pile up on the market. Which guys, listen to me, is not a bad thing. Let me tell you, I should be looking at this. This is the first time, and I wanna say five, six, or even a good six years at least, that you could actually stack listings. Oh man, you could actually stack 10, 20, 30 listings at one time. This is what you need to be thinking about right now. And I know a lot of you right now are thinking, oh my gosh, why would I go out and list properties that are gonna take a long time to sell, meanwhile having a seller that's probably gonna be mad at me because they're not selling. That's not the way to think about it at all whatsoever. So what am I gonna do? Monday, I'm dropping my next Monday morning strategy and it's gonna be teaching you exactly how to handle 25 plus active listings at all times. That way you can eliminate the fear of going out there and listing properties and actually stacking up your inventory, building an inventory, because that's what the number one agents do. Be ready for the Monday morning strategy video, how to handle 25 plus listings at all times, because I always had 20 to 30 active listings at all times. I always had 10 to 20 pending deals at all times. So be on the lookout for that video coming to you Monday. In the meantime, if you wanna learn how to use new construction to get more listings in your market, watch this video right here.