Winning in Today's Market: Why It's Still a Great Time to Sell

National headlines don't tell the whole story. Garrett and Shelby break down why the Treasure Valley remains a strong seller's market, what's driving buyer demand, and what today's local market means for homeowners.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

And welcome to the Idaho Life Show Real Estate and Community. I'm Garrett Thill. With me as always, we've got Shelby Matson. Shelby is one of the top producing agents in the entire Treasure Valley. And she is our VP of operations here at Idaho Life Real Estate. And over the next hour, we're going to break down today what is shaping up to be one of the strongest spring seller markets that we've seen in a really long time.

Speaker 0:21

A really long time, like since COVID, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 1 0:23

Right. I agree.

Speaker 0:24

Yes, I'm excited, and I'll tell you what, I have been waiting to talk about this market because what we're seeing out there right now on the listing side, especially, is not what people are reading about in the headlines. There's a real disconnect between the national story and what's actually happening here.

Speaker 1 0:40

Yeah. And that's really why where I want to start, Shelby, is the national media has been talking about for months now, right? It's a slow market. We're seeing you you turn on the news, that's all it takes, national media, and you see that buyers are pulling back, sellers are cutting prices nationwide. And then you look at the numbers here, and it's telling a completely different story from especially from last month here at home. So it tells a completely different story.

Speaker 1:04

Yeah, they really are. And before we get into the bigger picture, I just want to set the table for everyone. Last month in Ada County, the median sales price came at, it came in at about $400, I'm sorry, $548,000. That is up 3.8% from a year ago, which is crazy and great, right? Especially if you're already a homeowner. Correct. But the number that really jumps off the page to me, homes that sold last month in Ada County were up. Are you ready? 22.6% year over year. That's a lot. 22.5% more transactions than this time a year ago. That is a massive jump in in home prices.

Speaker 1 1:45

It's great. Yeah. And it's going to be lining it up with what we're hearing from our agents every week in our team meetings. I mean, we got the properties moving, Shelby. We've got listings hitting the market on a Friday morning, and by Sunday night, you'll have two or three offers at least, right? Sometimes four or five. So across all price points, not just at the beginner price point. So you got every level of uh price points getting those multiple offers.

Speaker 2:07

And that was actually the part that really surprised me most when I looked at the data. Because for a long time you could say, well, the under $500,000 stuff moves fast and the upper end sits, which was not too far ago, right? No, that's right. We are not seeing that this spring at all. We had a listing closed last week in the 750s range on the market less than one week. Three offers. Three. Yeah. I mean, that's just crazy. Another one north of 900,000, same story. The buyer activity is showing up across the board.

Speaker 1 2:40

Which is incredible to see at the 950,000. Before it was, you know, the the entry level, the three to four hundred thousand, but nine fifty, that's that's wild. So let's go ahead and pull up Canyon County in this conversation, too, because Canyon County, it's it's kind of its own animal, and the story over there is even more interesting in some ways. So the median last, the median price last month was just over 400,000, 409-ish more or less, which is up about 6.4% from last year. So stronger price gain percentage-wise than Ada County saw.

Speaker 3:11

Yeah, and inventory in Canyon dropped 8.5% from where it was a year ago.

Speaker 1 3:16

That is tighter market.

Speaker 3:17

It is a tighter market. There were 476 homes available in Canyon County last month. That number sounds fine until you compare it to the 304 homes that sold that same month.

Speaker 1 3:28

That's a big difference.

Speaker 3:29

Yeah. You start running the math on months of supply and you realize Canyon is just as tight as Ada is. Maybe tighter at this point, depending on the price and band that you're you're looking at. Yeah. Would you agree?

Speaker 1 3:40

I 100%. So it is uh, yeah, when you look at the 476, you go, that's a lot. But if 304 of them sold, not many left over. There's not much left. Yeah. So here's a stat that I want our listeners to really hold on to. So Ada County, the inventory was down 7.1% year over year. Canyon down 8.5%. So that inventory is shrinking more and more every week that we go, but the sales are up double digits.

Speaker 4:06

Right.

Speaker 1 4:07

In both counties. So you've got less supply, you've got more demand, and that's the entire definition of a seller's market kind of in one little snippet.

Speaker 4:15

And the buyer pull keeps expanding. We've got the in-state buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines for two years thinking rates were going to drop. And they finally accepted that this is the rate environment we're living in, and they're getting off the fence finally. Yeah. Right? We've got the relocation buyers still coming from Washington, Oregon, California. That pipeline never actually stopped. And now we've got the move up buyers in our own backyard who have built so much equity over the last five years, they're finally ready to make a move.

Speaker 1 4:45

It's so great. I'm so proud of everyone that did buy a house. And that's that's kind of what's interesting about the what we call the move up buyer is they're the ones who tend to be both a buyer and a seller at the same time, which we deal with day in and day out. So every move adds up to you know two transactions in the market. So one on each side, right? The buyers and the seller side. And that's partly what's driving the sales volume. It's not just the first-time buyers, but that move up buyer.

Speaker 5:10

For sure. And I want to add one more piece to the buyer story. We are also seeing a wave of first-time buyers who are tired of renting. They're absolutely fed up with it. Yeah. Rents in the valley have not come down. They have continued to climb, actually. So you've got a buyer pool that has done the math on a 30-year fixed payment versus their current rent payment, factored in five years of appreciation, and decided the long-term play is to buy.

Speaker 1 5:34

That's and that's the key there, too. It's not just comparing the numbers of the payment and the rent. It's you factor in that appreciation, they go, oh my gosh, this is a big difference. So the appreciation math is real. If you bought, just as an example, you bought a median price home in Ada County a year ago, you've gained about $20,000 in equity just from the appreciation alone. One year. Just appreciation. That's it. That doesn't count on what you paid down the principal. That's just the market appreciation.

Speaker 5:58

Yeah, and in County, Canyon County, that gain is closer to $24,000 on a medium priced home over the same year, right? So the wealth building piece of home ownership is still very much intact here, even with where rate rates are.

Speaker 1 6:13

Yeah. So let's talk a moment about the geography of the band for a second, too, because this is kind of something that I think gets overlooked, Shelby, and we're seeing buyers spread out further than ever right now. So Eagle and Star, this is kind of the area that continues to be incredibly competitive. Uh Meridian, multiple offers on almost every well-prepared listing. But we're also seeing real momentum in places like CUNA right now, Middleton, Caldwell. Even if going out as far as Greenleaf and Wilder, you're seeing an uptick as well.

Speaker 6:44

Yeah. Buyers are willing to drive further if it means getting more home for the money. We didn't see that for a while.

Speaker 1 6:50

No.

Speaker 6:50

Right? The remote work boom never fully re-reversed in our valley. We have a lot of professionals working three days from home, two days in the office, and that has permanently changed the radius of where people will live.

Speaker 1 7:02

Yeah, they're willing to be much farther out. Absolutely. Which is great. So days on the market is one more piece that we want to keep watching as well, and we keep an eye on in our office. And so Ada County right now is sitting about 27 days last month. Canyon slightly higher, 33 days. Both up a little bit from last year. Ada County up about 3.8%. Canyon about 6.5. So it's very negligible. So technically speaking, you do have homes that are sitting just a little bit longer than they were last spring.

Speaker 7:33

Yeah, but I think we need to put that number into context. So because 27 days and 33 days in any other market I've seen, it would be considered blazing fast. We just got spoiled in 2021 and 2022 when stuff was going pending in five days.

Speaker 1 7:49

COVID happened, yeah. Right.

Speaker 7:50

Exactly. So when somebody hears days on market is up, they think the market is cooling. It is not cooling. It is just not historically insane anymore.

Speaker 1 8:01

Right. So we like to call it normal, excuse me, normal but fast. And we've returned to what this is, Shelby, this is what a healthy market actually looks for. They sell quickly, but not every single property selling overnight.

Speaker 8:15

Yeah, that's true. That's true. And we're going to get into the more into this more in the next segment. But I want to plant the seed right now. Even with all that demand, there is a real divide forming between the homes that are flying off the market and the homes that are sitting. And what separates those two groups is not luck, honestly. There's a lot of work in preparation. It is two things, and we are going to spend a lot of time on that today.

Speaker 1 8:40

I'm excited for those. So if you don't mind kind of sharing what those two things are, Shelby.

Speaker 8:44

Preparation and pricing. That's it. And both of them are entirely within the seller's control, which is what makes this conversation so important.

Speaker 1 8:53

Okay. Well, I'm excited, and I think the listeners are as well. So stay at the stay with us, Treasure Valley. When we come back, we're going to dig into kind of why the national real estate news is painting a picture that has nothing to do with what's happening on the ground right here in the Treasure Valley. And we're going to share a stat that could change every seller in this market about what they think about their list price. You're listening to the Idaho Life Show, Real Estate and Community. We'll be right back.