February 2024 Hi-Desert Real Estate Market Update

Greetings Fans,

I do not know about you, but I am done with this cold weather! Winter has not been too bad this year, but enough cold is enough. I am ready to see the cactus blooms, trees budding, birds singing, and the sun shining for more than 10 hours a day.

Our real estate market has been in a defrost mode for almost two years now. Last month we closed escrow, basin wide, on just fifty-seven homes. I have been producing these Updates since 2013. I cannot find a month this low in all my Updates. Maybe there is one back there, but I cannot see it. Fifty-seven escrows are pretty bleak. To add to it, 75% of the closed escrows are below a $400,000 purchase price. What few buyers are interested, they are focused on our lower priced inventory. If you have a home over $500,000 you will be sitting for a while. Add to this that we currently have around six hundred homes for sale in our area and over 10% of these homes are listed above $1mil. Our market is out of balance and could take some time to heal. We currently have over a 10-month inventory of homes for sale. Our industry considers the market balanced at a 6-month inventory. As you can see, we have swung from two to three months to over ten in under two years. Quite the change.

Other interesting notes from this Update-

• Inventory at this writing is at six hundred homes for sale in our communities. As mentioned above, this is over a 10-month inventory.

• Active under contract and Pending sale increased. This bodes well for future closings. Assuming all these do close.

• One community, Joshua Tree, saw an increase in sales prices. Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms saw a decrease in average sold price.

• Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree saw an increase on days on market (how long it took to sell and close escrow). Twentynine Palms saw a remarkable decrease to 43 days.

I do not expect the February numbers to be much different than January’s. Hopefully, the spring market brings pent up buyers to purchase our growing inventory! If not, and as always, at least it will get warmer out.

Sincerely,

Bob Armstrong
(760) 221-2999
DRE #01275801
GREEN Real Estate Group