In July, the Rutherford County real estate market continued its shift towards a balanced market. Average Daily Inventory jumped +56.81% from last July and +29.69% from the previous month. That puts Average Daily Inventory at double the April average and nearly triple January’s low of 391 single family homes. Meanwhile, as interest rates remained wildly volatile, Contracts and Closings both dropped double digit percentages YOY and month-over-month. Read on for our in-depth look at the most current local real estate data.
In July, Listings Added were up +4.84% from last year, our third straight month of improvement. As previously mentioned, Inventory also rose with Average Daily Inventory up +56.81% from last July and +29.69% from this June. Contracts declined for the second straight month, this time down -16.29% from last month and -17.29% from last month. As predicted last month, Closings also followed the Contracts trend, down -26.05% from last year and -11.57% from last month.
Looking again at seasonal Inventory curves, Active Listings have eclipsed their 2020 decline and are now approaching the pre-pandemic norms of around 1,000 Active Listings per month. We’ve seen those numbers improve five fold from the record low 165 reported this February. The softening housing prices aren’t exactly taking a nose dive though, with both Average and Median Sale Price still sitting around 30% higher than last July. We did however see a notable month-to-month decrease, with Median List Price dropping -7.58% and Average Sale Price dropping -1.51% from June. The local real estate market has also seen a continuation of the considerable Price Reductions reported last month. At their peak two weeks ago Price Reductions impacted 24% of Active Listings on the market, with 16.5% of listings dropping their list price in the past 7 days, an average of $13,000.
Supply, while improving, is still being outpaced by demand with only 1.6 Months Supply of homes currently on the market. We saw all but two price points see improvement this month, many of which were significant jumps. The biggest spikes were in the mid-range prices where we saw over a month gain in Supply. Remember though, we consider a Balanced Market locally to be 4 Months Supply, so we’re still at least a month off from a balanced market in every price point, and two months or more off in all price points under $400K. With Supply continuing to trend upward, we do still expect we’ll be back in a Balanced Market across most price points by year’s end.
Looking at Mortgage Interest Rates, currently a 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage is averaging 4.99%, a welcome reprieve for buyers compared to the 5.81% peak we saw in June, the highest interest rate since 2009. Prior to that rates spent nearly a decade hovering around 6%, so comparatively interest rates are actually still quite good. The recent volatility of rates doesn’t leave us with much of a roadmap of where they are headed, but 5/1 and 7/1 ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) continue to be increasingly attractive options for buyers. We’re also seeing many of our buyers benefitting to a greater extent from buying down their interest rates, opposed to putting the same money as a down payment on their home. That’s a topic we’ll be addressing at length in our edutainment series on our social media channels. If you don’t already follow @murfreesbororealestate on Instagram and TikTok, please consider subscribing!
As always, if you are a buyer looking to find your new home in our rapidly changing local market, or a seller looking to take advantage of John Jones Real Estate’s LOCAL market expertise to sell your home faster & for more money, please give us a call at 615-867-3020. It would be our pleasure to serve you.
