The final tally is in for October. It’s a mixed bag with a few hopeful nuggets.
Sellers received a bit of a reprieve with a modest late-October surge following a very sluggish first half of the month. Single-Family Residence sales closed out at 32, with a Median Recorded Selling Price (aka, MRSP) of $1,067,500 for the month. Compare that with September 2022 which saw 27 sales and a MRSP of $875,000. Or, September 2021’s 53 sales and a MRSP of $944,500. If we go back, for a Pre-Pandemic snapshot, to October 2019, we can see a more “normal” number of monthly sales of 39. Compared with that, this October was down only 18%. But, then again, the MRSP at that point was $549,000 – about half of the 2022 figure.
41%
Decline in SFR Sales Spring 2022 vs Fall 2022
$1,067,500
MRSP for the month of Oct. 2022
View Historical Sedona Market Statistics Here
The snapshot for the year is essentially a “Tale of Two Halves,” with the yearly figures weighted heavily in favor of sellers in the first half and buyers in the second half.
This is nicely illustrated by comparing March-June 2022 with July-October 2022. There were 189 Single-Family Residence (aka, SFR) sales in the earlier four months versus 111 in the second four months – a 41% decline. The MRSP dropped from $1,120,000 to $1,025,000 – a 8.5% overall price drop. Actually, that’s a bit of an improvement from the 11% skid that we saw in the 3rd Quarter.
Buyer’s Advantage
In early November, home listings were up to 133 – four times what they were on April 1st, but still only 60 percent of the average pre-Pandemic number. So, supply remains a bit tight. Pending sales – a good indicator of demand – were off about 50% percent compared with April 1st, 2022, and down 40% vis-à-vis the Pre-Pandemic November average. So, fewer buyers and far more supply – advantage Buyers.
For Sellers, a more optimistic signal seems to be the latest Altos Research Market Action Index (MAI) for Sedona. In early October that had broken through the barrier separating Sellers’ and Buyers’ Markets by hitting 29. Anything below 30 indicates a Buyers’ Market. Since last April the index had continuously plummeted from its Super-Sellers’ Market heights of 76 – until early November when it modestly reversed course and up-ticked to 30. On 11 November, the MAI for all of Greater Sedona was 30, BUT, for Zip Code 86336 – the City of Sedona and some outlying areas it popped up to 31. At the same time, however, Zip 86351 – The Village of Oak Creek was still at 29. It remains to be seen where that will go from here.