El Paso Housing Market | 2022

El Paso Housing Market | 2022

Hi there, do you remember those days in 2020? 2021 we're basically a scarecrow could sell your house for like $20,000 over asking price Well, my friends those days are quickly gone. Let me tell you all about it in the market update for El Paso Hi, my name is John Peña with Peña El Paso Realty Group. If you are looking to buy or sell a home, please consider reaching out to us. We are not a scarecrow agent and we want to prove that to you by providing as much value and information about the market in El Paso kind of as a summer kind of thing.

So let's go ahead and jump right into it. So just for a little bit of kind of like economic news now, I know everybody understands this that yes, we're seeing inflation prices for everything are rising. Basically, it's pretty obvious that we yes, we are going to be looking at a recession for the next could be, you know, six to 24 months. So, you know, that is a little bit of foreboding economic news, but let me let's keep it in perspective because, you know, different parts of the country are going to experience this economic situation differently. And so here's just a little tidbit about the kind of economic situation in El Paso that relates to the housing market that I thought was pretty interesting.

So the unemployment rate in El Paso dropped from 5.8 percent in August of last year down to 4.6 percent. So basically what that's saying is that there are basically more jobs available and more people are going after those jobs. And in particular, MSA is medical support assistance. Those those jobs are really, really striving. Those jobs saw basically a three percent increase kind of year over year from just about three hundred and seventeen thousand of those jobs to almost three hundred and twenty seven thousand jobs.

So, you know, there is some good news here. You know, the the El Paso economy, it's on one hand, we all know that the minimum wage is pretty low. That's not ideal. On the other hand, I've said this a ton, but for skilled workers, you know, it's still a pretty reasonable, reasonable market. And remember, our affordability is still pretty darn good. And so with that, let me tell you about kind of the housing situation and what we're seeing. I'm just going to cut and just I'm not going to have no fluff. I'm just going to give you the things that I think are probably most important for you to know.

So first of all, year over year, home sales in El Paso have dropped ten point five percent. OK, that means that the number of homes that were sold this year is 10 percent less than the number of homes that were sold last year. OK, however, the dollar volume rose from about two hundred and thirty five million to two hundred and thirty six million. So that's up about 19 percent. So basically what's what happened is that last year more homes sold, but the homes were still less money.

Now, less homes have sold, but the prices have continued to rise. OK, now prices are not continuing to rise right now. We're going to see a plateauing, a resetting. Again, I've said this a number of times that we're going to see the housing market reset itself. However, El Paso, I guarantee you, is going to do much better than these overpriced, crazy markets that got out of hand during kind of post-COVID.

Boise, Idaho, Austin, you know, Tampa, some of these other markets that just just went nuts. We didn't go nuts. You know, prices increased, but not so drastically as these other places. So big picture, though, the fact of the matter is less homes in El Paso are selling right now than they did last year. OK, second point that's important for you to know, the average and I just kind of touched on this,

but the average sales price for a home in El Paso rose 12 percent from about two hundred and thirty five thousand dollars last year to about two hundred and sixty three thousand dollars this year. What does that mean? Pretty obvious. Home prices, even though everybody and their grandmother has been saying, you know, the housing market's going to crash, it's the end of the world. That is has not been the case year over year. August of this year to August of last year, 12 percent increase in home prices. Now, if you're a homeowner, don't get too excited about that because the buyer demand and we're going to talk about this,

but that that that strong buyer demand that was fueling those those price increases that has dropped off dramatically. Why, of course, interest rates. Right. So third point to know the average price per square foot. This is just a great number to know. You basically take the price of the home. You divide that by the total square footage and you get the average price per square foot. Right.

The average price per square foot climbed last year, August, summer, one hundred and twenty two dollars. Now we're just right basically at about one hundred and forty dollars a square foot up 15 percent. OK, so even though the market is cooling off and even though that seller's market is pretty much you can put a fork in that, that thing's pretty much done. Prices have still over the last year still risen.

You know, but 15 percent is a big change from, say, like some markets where prices were going up 30, 40 percent. That is unsustainable. It remains to be seen if our 15 percent increases are sustainable or not. A couple other smaller points. The number of months of inventory. Basically, if no more houses came on the market right now, it would take last year.

It would have taken about one point two months to sell off everything right now that it would take almost two months, one point eight months. So all that means is that homes are sitting on the market longer. Right. Basically, days to sell, days to sell means the days that the home sat on the market while people were looking at it. Plus the, you know, three to six weeks that it took to close.

That's day to sell. That rose last year. Ninety one this year. Ninety seven. So, I mean, basically homes are sitting around a little bit longer, but that's not a really big change. I mean, homes are still selling if they're priced well. And three more things. Quick. Two more things. New listings down 18 percent year over year.

Why? Because a lot of people now, the homeowners that are informed like yourself and listen to informed real estate agents like myself know that, you know, if you were just kind of wanting to capture the most amount of money for your home and you had a plan B, you could go live with family or you'd buy another home or whatever. Last year was a great time to sell. If you don't need to sell your house right now, you probably shouldn't because you're not going to capitalize on that seller's market that that's that has passed for the moment.

And so, of course, a lot of people know that. And so less homes are going on the market. One more active listings are down 24 percent. So, you know, basically the same idea. Simply less people are selling their home because the advantages that they had last year and the year before are really no longer there. So that's that's kind of that's kind of the real estate market for El Paso and sort of the country in a nutshell.

So I hope that that that that information is useful for you. If you have questions, comments, by all means, you know, reach out to us directly. Leave a comment in underneath the video here and we'd love to get back to you. Speaking of that, if you're finding value in our content, which I hope you are, please consider subscribing to the channel, you know, liking the videos, all of that.

The algorithm, the algorithm, you got to help the algorithm. But sincerely, though, we do appreciate that. So real quick, let's just let's make some predictions. What do I predict is going to happen in fall, maybe winter of this year with a real estate market for us?

October, the month we're about to roll into now, October is has been the slowest month. OK, so that that is trending to be the case. So October's slow. I'm not exactly sure why. It's just that everyone's back into school or exactly what the reason for that is.

However, I do suspect that, you know, the El Paso market is not going to see a crash. You know, a crash means that people are underwater and they have to sell their house for like a 30 percent loss. That is not going to happen. I mean, that's it just isn't.

So are we going to see the housing market maybe kind of stabilize and fluctuate a little bit? Might that listing price per square foot that's around what I say, 140. Might that start to drop a little bit? It's possible. But again, remember, El Paso is a strong market because lots of people want to relocate here.

And we have all the people that are PCS in here for Fort Bliss. And so it remains a pretty, pretty strong market. So, like I said, I do think prices are going to kind of plateau out. I don't see prices necessarily coming down.

But those days of, you know, the, you know, getting 30 offers and thirty thousand dollars over the asking price. Those days are definitely over, which is great news if you're a buyer. And if you're a seller, make sure you reach out to us so that we can maximize the sale of your home for you in this market. And so with all of that said, thank you so much.

I'm going to start introducing some espanol into these videos. So until next time, que le vaya bien.