Year in review: Residential real estate defined by slim housing stock, new projects
Date Posted: December 19, 2019
Posted In: Discussion,
From St. Louis Business Journal: In 2019, the residential real estate industry saw trends from 2018 extend into this year. Buyers remained vexed with the low stock of homes for sale, and homebuilders continued home starts at a solid clip.
There were also fresh developments in the industry this year, with top homebuilders outlining new projects, a historic home generating headlines and the region’s largest homebuilder making a key promotion. Here are five of the biggest residential real estate story from this year:
Low inventory
For homebuyers, the frustrations they had in 2018 continued into 2019. Throughout the year, the number of available homes for sale remained slim, leaving buyers annoyed with the drastically low inventory.
“It’s probably a good time to sell, but a bad time to buy,” Dennis Hayden, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Results, told the Business Journal earlier this year.
In May, during the peak of the spring home buying season, the local housing inventory was above prior year totals, but still remained at historic lows. In November, data from the St. Louis Realtors trade group showed the number of local homes for sale totaled 4,051, down 22% year-over-year. Local real estate agents say the low inventory means buyers must decide quickly to make an offer on a home that catches their eye.
Homebuilding sees slight uptick
Homebuilding in the St. Louis region has seen a slight uptick in the St. Louis region so far in 2019. Data from Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri shows the amount of building permits pulled through November are up 3.4% year-over-year. The trade group tracks the number of permits pulled in St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Lincoln County, Warren County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the city of St. Louis. St. Charles County continues to lead the region with the most home permits pulled this year. Meanwhile, St. Louis County appears to be on pace for its amount of permits pulled to be below both 2017 and 2018 totals.