2024 is in the books and a new year is here! Our January Market Update takes a look at how the year ended and includes a peak at the year ahead.
In December home sales in Lawrence actually saw a hardy rebound from a fairly soft November with an increase of over 18% in transactions. Average price remained relatively flat for the last two months of the year. Average days-on-market increased to over a month (33 days). New listings, however, saw a fairly steep decline of almost 36% last month.
Compared with a very weak month from December 2023, both home sales and average price were way up year-over-year. Lawrence saw almost a 15% increase in home sales in December 2024 vs 2023, and average price increased almost 12%. This was a very remarkable contrast to the end of 2023 which resembled more a nose-dive. New listings did take a bit of a dip last month vs. the prior year (43 vs 53).
All of the stats that follow are sourced from the Lawrence MLS. What follows is a look at some market numbers specifically within the city limits of Lawrence:
Month-over-Month
- December home sales increased 18.2% from the previous month with 78 sold homes
- Average price was largely flat at +0.3% in December vs. the previous month, up to $329.4K
- Average Days-on-Market was up 32% at 33 Days-on-Market
- 43 homes were listed in December, a decrease from 67 listed in November
- List-Price-to-Sales-Price Ratio for December was 98.3%
- Average Per-Square-Foot in December was 185/sq.ft.
Year-over-Year
- Home sales were up 14.7% in December '24 vs December '23, an increase of 10 homes sold
- Average Price was up YOY 11.7% compared to December '23
- Dollar Volume was up 27.9% vs December '23 for a total of $25.7M in the month
- The 43 homes listed last month was a 18.9% decrease vs. December '23
- Average Per-Square-Foot was up 3.4% in December '24 vs. December '23
YTD
- Homes Sales ended up +3.9% YTD through December; an increase of 35 homes sold
- Average Price was up 4.1% in 2024
- Average DOM ended the year at 24 Days, a 33.5% increase from 2023
- 1,230 Homes were listed in 2024, an increase of 8.1%
- Dollar Volume was up 8.2% YTD for a total of $320.8M
- Average Per-Square-Foot for the year is at $188/sq.ft., up from $175/sq.ft. in 2023
Active Properties
- There are 94 "Active" properties in Lawrence, a decrease of 27.7% since my last update
- There are 56 properties currently listed as "Under Contract" which is a decline of 22.2% since my last update
- Months-of-Supply: There is currently 0.8 months-of-supply in Lawrence
Last year I had predicted a 4-6% increase in home values and look at that: 2024 saw a 4.1% increase! After 2023 saw a massive decline in overall home sales in Lawrence, I had predicted a modest rebound of 10-15%. The 3.9% increase in homes sales fell well below my prediction. I think that is due to a continuation of the "lock-in effect." Many buyers and sellers are waiting things out to see if rates come down any more. For the moment, many home owners are sitting tight to see what the market does.
2024 seemed up and down at times. Sometimes week-to-week. A few homes came on the market red-hot. They sold within days (or hours) and saw multiple offers, closing at a sales price well in excess of their asking price. Other homes sat. And sat. And sat and sat on the market before finding a buyer. And some didn't sell at all.
Overall, it proved to be a difficult year to predict. My predictions made in January were mostly accurate., so from that perspective the 2024 market didn't come with any big surprises. But on the ground things seemed different. Odd. Weird. Buyers were more demanding, given the rise in values and interest rates. And sellers were starry-eyed with promises of big payouts and the perks of a seller's market. This made getting from offer-to-closing quite challenging at times.
How will 2025 be different? I'll be following this market update with a Predictions for 2025 post. Keep and eye out for that soon!
Stay tuned to R+K Real Estate for great new content, updates, advice, opinions and more in 2024. We plan to continue our advance of transparency, consumer advocacy, and empowering our clients with alternate business models designed to provide high levels or real estate service with drastically reduced commissions!
-Ryan Desch, Broker/Owner R+K Real Estate Solutions
