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Local real estate market experts, Market Watch LLC, have just released their July 2018 Desert Housing Report. Some of the highlights are:
The Coachella Valley median detached home price in July was $400,000. While this is down $16,500 from June, it is up $26,000 (7%) year-over-year. Market Watch noted that from the chart of Coachella Valley median detached home price, historically July is the start of a few months of weak to neutral price performance and July’s median detached home price appears to be no exception.
The Coachella Valley median attached home price in July was $270,000 (up 6% from July 2017). However, Market Watch noted that it was down $9,000 from June’s high indicating that median attached home prices appear to have begun the normal seasonal pattern of price weakness from July to October.
The median detached home prices in each of the nine Coachella Valley cities showed strong twelve-month gains, in July, ranging from a high twelve-month gain of 31.4% in Indian Wells down to 3.4% in Palm Springs. Similarly, the median attached home prices in eight of the nine Valley cities showed strong twelve-month gains, ranging from a high twelve-month gain of 37.5% in Rancho Mirage down to -6.2% in Cathedral City. In five of the nine desert cities (Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Rancho Mirage, Coachella and La Quinta), median detached home prices still remain more than 20% off of the Coachella Valley’s 2006 high prices. In six of the nine desert cities (Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Indian Wells, La Quinta and Cathedral City), median attached home prices still remain more than 30% off of the Coachella Valley’s 2006 high prices.
Average monthly home sales over the last twelve months ( a time period long enough to take out seasonality) were 852 units in July, compared to 805 units a year ago (an increase of 5.8% ). Of that, total detached home sales were 3.4% higher while attached sales were 10% higher. Market Watch expects this long term trend will also continue.
In July, seven cities (Thousand Palms, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City, Indio, Palm Desert and Palm Springs) registered higher three month sales, three cities (Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells and La Quinta) were lower while one (Rancho Mirage) had the same sales. Thousand Palms had the largest sales increase with 75%, followed by Coachella at 28%, Desert Hot Springs at 12% and Palm Desert at 3.5%. Bermuda Dunes had the largest sales decrease with 12% lower sales.
In July, unit sales of homes priced under $300k were lower by 13% (due to low inventory of homes in this price range) but unit sales of homes priced over $300k were higher by 14.4%. The net increase in home sales for all price zones was 2.1%.
Housing inventory on August 1st stood at 2,735 units (611 units less than on August 1st, 2017). Market Watch pointed out that this is the lowest inventory number since August of 2013. Market Watch pointed out that the current inventory is a complete reversal of the situation that existed two and a half years ago when August 1st inventory rose to 6,000 units.
On August 1st, the months of supply ratio was 3.2 months, the lowest ratio since 2013. Market Watch expects this ratio to go even lower over the next two months before seasonal forces begin to take the ratio higher as it usually begins to do around October 1st. They point out that historically, a low ratio like this means that the balance of supply and demand in the Coachella Valley is definitely weighted in favor of the sellers and that the upward pressures driving prices higher should continue. The median value of days on the market was 67 days in July (6.5 days less than in July 2017).
In looking at months of supply by price range, the months of supply ratios decreased in all price brackets except the price bracket from $700k to $800k (which Market Watch attributed to a statistical anomaly). For all homes priced under $700k, the months of supply ratio is close to four months or less. For homes priced over a million dollars the months of supply ratio is 8.6 months (a low ration according to Market Watch).
Cathedral City has the lowest months of supply ratio at 2.3 months followed by Indio at 2.6 months and Palm Springs at 2.8 months. All cities currently have months of supply ratios equal to or below four months except La Quinta at 4.3 months and Indian Wells at 5.7 months.
The information contained in the Desert Housing Report is produced for Coachella Valley real estate agents through the sponsorship and cooperation of the California Desert Association of Realtors®(CDAR) and the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors® (PSRAR) by Market Watch LLC.