Welcome back to the real estate market report for April 5th, 2023.
We are officially into the second quarter here, We have rounded out a great first quarter. Activity was up. We got out of the gates from a real estate standpoint very early on.
We saw this early push to the spring market, and then just in general, we’ve had a fair amount of people visiting the beach in the first quarter. The weather’s been pretty good. Obviously, we didn’t have a ton of snow, like those ski resorts, and we wish we had a little bit more.
But from a beach standpoint, we’ve had a lot of folks make their way down to the beach. So, we’re off to a great start here in 2023.
But what does that mean when we actually look at the numbers?
Worcester County, Maryland
As for the numbers for Worcester County in the past week, we had 47 new properties hit the market, while we had 61 go under contract in the last seven days. If we look at the numbers county-wide, we had 267 current actives for sale, while we sold 183 in the last 30 days, giving us 1.41 months’ supply. So, that is just under a month and a half supply in Worcester County at the current rate that we’re selling homes.
Sussex County, Delaware
Over at Sussex County, Delaware, there were 144 properties new to the market in the last seven days and 153 going under contract in the last seven days. County-wide, there were 1,234 actives for sale in Sussex County, and at the rate we’re going, we’re selling 469 a month. So that’s 2.63 months’ supply in Sussex County, Delaware.
Wicomico County, Maryland
Rounding out Delmarva with Wicomico County. There were 31 new active listings in the last seven days, and 34 have gone under contract. So, it was very balanced there.
County-wide—this is where it gets interesting— there are 125 currently for sale, but the rate we’re selling them right now is 115 a month. So, that’s just over a month’s supply, 1.0008. We thought we might go under a month’s supply in Wicomico County, but we’re just over.
What does that mean? What is all this info mean?
Well, first thing, if you have considered selling at all, you’ll want to do it now. This is the perfect storm for selling your property. Inventory is very low. We’ve not seen a push of new inventory, which a lot of people thought we would do. The economy is still kind of sputtering along, but there is some movement. We might see things slow a little bit as the year goes on. So, if you’re looking to sell, you want to sell when there is less supply and strong demand.
Springtime typically has the strongest demand because people want to get into a beach house. They want to get that property secured here before summer.
If you think about it, how many good summers do we have left? None of us know, right? So we want to take advantage of the summer and the mid-Atlantic. It’s not all year long, so we want to take advantage of those more months while we can. So people want to get in and get that property secured here before we get into summer.
All of that coming together, if you have a property that shows well, that is typically in a good location, and we have a pricing strategy that maybe is at or just above the marketplace, you’re going to have success here in the springtime selling.
National Market
Across the country—this helps buyers and sellers—we have officially hit our two-month lows with mortgage interest rates. So, we are now in the low sixes for 30-year fixed mortgages. A lot of the government loans are now under 6%, including jumbo loans under 6%. The 15 years are definitely going to be in the low 5’s, so mortgages are available and the rates have come down.
So, if you’re looking to buy, you can actually buy more house right now with the rate being a little bit lower.
If you have any questions at all about the real estate market or anything in general here at the beach, we’d love to assist you in any way that we can. We’ve got a great team of agents here ready to help you, so thanks again.