Let's take a look at the numbers comparing the real estate activity in the first quarter of 2021 to the same time period in 2019 and 2020.
First Quarter |
Eagle Rock 90041 | Highland Park 90042 | Glassell Park/ Mt Washington 90065 |
El Sereno. 90032 | Altadena 91001 | South Pasadena 91030 |
2019 #Sold/ Av List $/ Av Sold $ |
52 973K 1,003K |
81 859K 880K |
90 901K 921K |
66 641K 636K |
102 989K 1000K |
38 1333K 1362K |
2020 #Sold/ Av List $/ Av Sold $ |
52 984K 1010K |
84 890K 916K |
56 871K 893K |
43 671K 682K |
89 949K 962K |
29 1546K 1612K |
2021 #Sold/ Av List $/ Av Sold $ |
103 1150K 1233K |
189 995K 1036K |
169 1026K 1061K |
124 774K 777K |
189 1197K 1202K |
78 1,810K 1,737K |
What does all this mean? You can interpret these numbers different ways, but the basic truth would seem to be across the board that prices are going up! That’s surprising as all you read about the economy says that we can’t sustain these prices. Many of us wonder where these people are getting the money to pay these prices. Prices went up in 2020, too, even though Altadena’s average sales price didn’t. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the ones who made offers on some of the houses in Altadena, and found that they were competing with as many as 50 offers didn’t think that the market was slowing down. In other words, well-priced, well prepared houses did well. Those owners who over-priced their homes or didn’t see why they should make their home attractive to a buyer didn’t do as well. And that’s in every market. There is a lot of thought and experience that goes into pricing and marketing for higher sales prices even though it looks like you can put any price you want on a house and you’ll get it.
Low interest rates were credited with much of the activity. Interest rates have increased lately, but mostly to 2019 levels, still under 4%. Still low by historic levels. And the numbers of houses sold has doubled since 2019 levels, so current interest rates are not affecting number of sales or average sales prices in the first third of 2021. Will it continue? I wish I knew because I could make much more money if I did, and you could, too. But as they say, my crystal ball is in the shop now.