I have a few things on my mind. Let’s talk about more home owners, slumping volume, confidence, and outliers. Anything to add?

Increasing home ownership rate: There’s so much dreary news these days because of slumping sales volume. So here’s some good news first. We’re seeing an uptick in the home ownership rate (especially with buyers under 35). Check out the right side of the graph. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s welcome news. Image source: Len Kiefer.

Slumping volume & the Superbowl:CNBChow this will play out in the new year

Confidence: I like what NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun had to say about sales volume in this CNBC article: “The latest decline is harder to explain. Perhaps it is the decline in consumer confidence that’s been occurring in the latter half of 2018.” As Yun mentions and we’ve been talking about, interest rates going up really slowed down the market last year. But is it more than just rate changes? Could it be consumers losing confidence in the market? That’s something we have to explore and watch over time. How do you think we’d gauge that? I’d love to hear your take in the comments.

The Governor’s outlier purchase: I mentioned California Governor Gavin Newsomjust bought a house in Fair Oaks for $3.7M. Well, here’s what that purchase looks like on a graph. It’s an outlier in price, but it’s also an outlier because of the huge lot size and square footage. It’s the fifth highest sale ever in the county and definitely the highest ever in Fair Oaks.

That $238M sale & Sacramento’s Top 10: $238M sale

I’m expecting really dull January stats:

Preview of 2019 trends right now: The big question right now is what the market is going to do in 2019. We’ll begin to see that in sales stats in March and beyond, but right now we’re getting a preview in the listings and pendings of today that’ll eventually become sales.

I hope this was interesting or helpful. Thanks so much for reading.

Courtesy of www.LundquistCompany.com