Kansas Real Estate Market Stats Remain Solid As We Head Into Slower Winter Season

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market


The recently released real estate market stats for October show the state of Kansas had further improvements in both average sales prices and volume of home sold across the state. The number of homes sold rose 20.5% in October in comparison to October 2011. This is one of the largest increases I’ve seen in some time and follows up last month’s modest 0.2% increase in volume of homes sold.

Average home sales price rose 3.8% compared to October of last year. This jump in home sale prices follows up last month’s 6.6% increase. Comparing October’s sales rate against the volume of homes for sale, there’s 5.6 months of inventory on the market. The stats a month ago showed Kansas with 6.5 months of real estate inventory. Both calculations represent a balanced real estate market in the state of Kansas and that makes eight straight months that Kansas has been in a balanced market.

More locally here in Johnson County Kansas, the market remains exceptionally strong. Home sales have been solid and there hasn’t been an overwhelming influx of new listings hitting the market. The past 30 days there were 605 homes sold and using that sales rate (compared to the volume of homes for sale in Johnson County Kansas), there’s 3.7 months of inventory on the market. This is an improvement over the 3.9 months of inventory at last month’s check. This is a great trend as we head into what’s traditionally a slower time of year for homes sales.


Posted by Jason Brown

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Lowering Of Conventional Loan Limits Should Have Minimal Effect On Kansas City Real Estate Market

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Fannie Mae is planning to be less involved in future upper bracket home purchases. Currently, most counties across the U.S., including all of our Kansas City metro counties, have a $417,000 maximum loan amount that Fannie Mae will back. This means if you need a $450,000 loan, you don’t qualify for a conventional loan backed by Fannie Mae and will need to search for a lender willing to deal with this price range loan. That would likely mean higher loan costs, a higher interest rate, etc. Since it doesn’t appear there will be any change to the $417,000 level, it appears our Kansas City real estate market is mostly insulated from the coming changes.

More expensive real estate markets across the country are sure to be effected however. During the mortgage lending crises of the past several years, Fannie Mae stepped in raising the maximum price on loans it would back. This was designed to help stabilize counties with the most fragile and expensive real estate markets (i.e. few lenders around who were willing to make loans on the homes). But now Fannie Mae is reeling things back in by lowering limits back closer to the lowest $417,000 figure. 

While Kansas City appears mostly insulated from these changes, any adverse affect on our delicate national real estate market threatens to have a trickle down effect.  With some reports indicating that national home prices have fallen back to 2002 levels, let’s hope the effects of these changes are minimal here in Kansas City, Johnson County Kansas, Overland Park and the surrounding areas.


Posted by Jason Brown

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December’s Real Estate Stats Indicate Home Sale Prices Are Increasing In The State Of Kansas

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The Kansas Association of Realtors (KAR) report for December indicates the real estate market in the state of Kansas is stabilizing. After seeing five consecutive months of declining numbers, the number of homes sold (closed) in December 2010 was virtually identical to the number of sales in December of 2009.  This is even more impressive when you consider the previous year’s stats were compiled while we were still in the midst of the home buyer tax credit. The Kansas figures were also much better than the average national stats, which saw the volume of home sales drop 2.9% in December.

The amount of inventory on the market in Kansas stood at 8.8 months in December. In this case, the months of inventory was calculated using the number of December home sales and dividing that figure into the number of homes for sale when the report came out. Just as promising, the average sales in Kansas rose from $151,952 in December 2009 to $158,628 this December. That’s a very significant jump.

Looking closely at our local market, in Johnson County Kansas 521 homes were sold (closed) in  December. This was up from the 460 homes that sold in Johnson County in December 2009. Comparing this December’s sales rate to the amount of inventory  currently on the market indicates there’s 6.6 months of inventory on the market. This amount of inventory indicates a stable real estate market in Johnson County Kansas.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

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