Ada County, Idaho Market Pulse Week of May 18 · from Luke Gilbert's team |
Homes priced over $450,000 are sticking around longer, and sellers are quietly getting more flexible. The number of listings is climbing, but high mortgage rates are forcing buyers to be choosy. If you are selling, expect more negotiations and a higher chance that you will need to make a price cut or offer a concession. If you are buying, patience is paying off with more choices and a little more leverage than you had last month. Price growth has stalled across most of Ada County. The typical home is now listed at $694,350, which is down about $4,650 from last week. That is not a dramatic shift, but it breaks the streak of flat prices we saw for most of May. It is the same story for new construction, where the median price just dropped almost $45,000 in a single week. Builders are feeling the pinch from higher costs and slowing demand, especially in places like Meridian and Eagle. Active Market Inventory keeps building, now at 1,798 active listings. That is another 45 homes added since last week. Sellers are reacting: 30.6 percent have lowered their price, which is the highest share we have seen this spring. The median price per square foot is unchanged at $301, so what we are seeing is not a flood of fixer-uppers or luxury listings—just more sellers facing reality on price. Median days on market slipped to 35, down from 42 last week. That looks like homes are moving faster, but the real story is more complicated. Most of those sales are happening at the lower end or for homes that were priced right from the start. The typical pending sale is priced at $598,000 and has been on the market for 46 days, which means that anything sitting longer is being pushed to cut price or offer more incentives. For sellers, the message is simple: buyers have time to look around, and they are not feeling pressure to jump. If you are selling, pricing above the competition is a good way to end up in the price-cut column by June. New construction Builders blinked this week. The median new construction price fell hard, now at $599,900, down $44,550 from last week. That is a rare drop, and my read is that higher material costs—thanks to tariffs and inflation—are making it tough for developers to start new projects. Instead of raising prices and hoping for the best, some are cutting prices to move inventory that is already built. If you are shopping for a new home, this is the first real sign that builders are feeling the squeeze and are more willing to negotiate on price, not just on upgrades or closing costs. The bigger picture National headlines about mortgage rates and the Fed feel distant until you try to buy a house in Ada County. With rates still sitting near 6.8 percent, monthly payments for a $550,000 home in Meridian are hundreds of dollars higher than they were two years ago. That is keeping many would-be buyers on the sidelines, especially move-up buyers who work in tech or government and are not seeing big wage gains. At the same time, developers are pulling back on new projects because it costs more to build and there are fewer buyers who can qualify. That means the new listings you see now might be the most options you will have all summer. The data does not force a conclusion yet. But when new construction prices drop this sharply, and more than 30 percent of sellers are cutting prices, it is clear that the market is not just drifting sideways anymore. Whether this is the start of a longer cooling period or just a pause before summer activity picks up is the question I am watching. | |||
| |||
Prepared for you by Luke Gilbert |