Straight Shooting Real Estate

Another week and the trend we’ve seen developing this year in average list prices and inventories continues.

Once again, we’re seeing list prices and inventories — the number of homes for sale — tending to drop in the four markets covered in the weekly average/median list prices and inventories report released by the Arkansas Realtors® Association.

Of course, the report doesn’t cover all markets in the state, but the four areas from which data is pulled do give us a good idea of trends across the state when the information from those markets is combined. Those four markets are central Arkansas (Faulkner, Grant, Lonoke, Perry, Pulaski and Saline counties), the Fort Smith/Van Buren area (Crawford and Sebastian counties), the Jonesboro area (Craighead county) and northwest Arkansas (Benton and Washington counties only). To take a detailed look at the overall impact of average prices and inventories from those four areas, click on the graphic at the top of this post. To look at the raw data, click on the graphic at the end of this post. Clicking either link will open up a new tab or browser window.

Believe it or not, declining list prices comes as good news. Why? It’s no secret that sales are slowing down, so we will see a period in which list prices decline. It is our hope that those dropping prices have also cut down on housing inventories in markets across Arkansas. In theory, we’ll see markets expand again once prices have fallen to the point where more buyers are purchasing homes.

The good news for sellers in all of this is that the declining average list prices are gradual — a sign that sellers are not panicking and are still able to find buyers. It is true that sellers may have to wait a bit longer in today’s market to sell a home than they did a couple of years ago, but there are still plenty of people wishing to purchase homes out there.