Downtown Des Moines November Real Estate Sales
Each month I like to provide an overview of how the downtown real estate market did in the previous month. I do this to provide everyone looking for information about buying downtown an accurate gauge of how sales are moving along.
Both September and October saw a total of 3 units each month sold, with both months showing a full 10 year supply of homes on the market based upon the current rate. This means that there were over 350 homes listed on the MLS for downtown proper, and each month saw 3 units sell.
November, as most expected, saw these numbers drop. Anyone who’s spent any time in Iowa real estate knows that during the winter sales really fall off because nobody likes to move when it’s cold and snowy.
November saw a 66% decline in sales, and for you math majors out there, that means that downtown had a total of 1 sale in November. One is of course better than zero, but I highly doubt there are lots of people downtown jumping in the streets for joy in the amazing sales figures that November brought about.
I have done some talking with realtors that are outside the downtown scene, and primarily focus on (gasp!) the suburbs. What I’m hearing from them is that where the most change in the market is happening is in new construction. Out in the burbs builders are going belly up left and right and agents are seeing some really good possibilities for great deals as the banks are forced to sell portfolios of homes that they do not want. What I’m being told is that existing inventory isn’t changing much (or changing hands much either), and that new construction has been horrible.
Which leads me to this thought. Is the downtown market suffering the same effects that the suburbs are? Is the market oversupplied, is it overpriced? Are buyers seeing that builders and developers are taking a beating and waiting for prices to plummet? While I’m not convinced this is the case, I’m not convinced it’s not either. There is a reason for new construction to be taking the beating right now that existing homes are not–I just can’t quite put my finger on why exactly that is.
The one sale in November downtown…….A resale at Brown Camp Lofts. Interesting.
If I were looking to sell my unit downtown I can tell you what I’d be doing about right now. I’d put a renter in it because the chances of finding someone to rent are quite high, the chances of my unit being the 1 out of 350+ that gets picked to be purchased is quite low.
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I would like to rent one of the brownstones on grand, but with prices as high as they are, the rent would probably be 2000 month. I could probably find a better deal once the caucus folks leave downtown.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that……About the caucus folks having that big of effect on the market downtown anyway.
I think it’s largely price. Wages are down in a major way in the Des Moines area, and yet downtown housing has never been more expensive, both for purchase and rent. Builders and managers are shooting way too high in pricing these properties. I guess they’d rather have vacant properties than price their properties to sell (or rent).
Walter: what do yo mean that wages are down in a major way. Unemployment in Iowa is 3.9% (compared to 4.7% nationally), which is considered to be “full employment” by economists, and the major employers in town are for the most part expanding with high paying jobs.
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