So… are you up for a little trot down memory lane?
Just to recap, in the last couple of years, many neighborhoods around Reno-Sparks nearly doubled in value. This kind of appreciation, familiar to the Bay Area, Sacramento and Tahoe, was pretty much unheard of here. But the rolling boom finally hit in 2003 (and just recently moved on to Salt Lake City).
Looking at the data, I’d say the market turned at the beginning of summer 2005. More homes came on the market, they began taking longer to sell, and prices softened a bit this fall. I think a little more softening may come our way, but I don’t foresee a huge crash.
Actually, if we take the year in its entirety, our overall numbers are still up. In 2005, 7571 homes sold for an average price of $367,633. Compare this to the prior year when 7015 homes sold for an average price of $305,360. That’s a 7% increase in the number of transactions and a 17% increase in price. The only difference is that in 2004, 9376 were listed for sale, and in 2005, 13,612 were listed. That’s a 31% increase in inventory… a lot to deal with. Basically, a bunch of people got excited about the hot housing market and decided to try and cash in. (Whoops, too late.)
I’m thinking that over the winter, more non-serious sellers will drop off the market, especially if the weather is bad, and prices will stabilize, for the most part. We shall see…
