St. Louis City Condo Sales Slow Down

Over the last few days, I posted numbers that showed the market trends for the last 5 years for single family homes and condos in St. Louis County and St. Charles County.

The bottom line is:

• the number of units selling has decreased each year over the last few years
• days on market has increased to about 3 months to sell a home and 4 months to sell a condo on average
• 2008 showed the lowest percentage of units that sold in 30 days or less
• average sale prices continued to climb for the most part through the slow years of 2006 and 2007, but are down this year
• condos have been much harder hit than homes in the current down market

Not to leave out my city dwellers, below you can find the same information for homes and condos located in St. Louis City for 2003-2008. (2008 sales are from January 1-May 24).

(NOTE: Homes are primarily made up of single family homes and fee simple row homes, but may include some condos. Condos sales include garden style and townhome condos, villas, fee simple attached properties, plus a small number of coop properties.)

St. Louis City has a lot of condos in hip, desirable areas. The downtown loft district, Soulard, Lafayette Square and the Central West End continue to be a great place to live for those wanting an escape from suburban living.

The desire to live in a vibrant, exciting area has fueled the condo sales and has resulted in the City condo sales being the only category that I’ve reviewed in the last few days that has had increasingly strong sales each year through last year. The City condos have continued to sell at almost the same speed with only slight increases in days on markets in 2006 and 2007.

But 2008 has brought a change to this market too. Sales are down. Days on market shot up from 109 days last year to 149 in 2008. Average sale price is below 2005 numbers. And only 1 in 10 condos sells in 30 days or less compared to 3 in 10 during 2003.

As in the other parts of town, St. Louis City homes have also taken a harder hit this spring than the last few years.

I’m not surprised at how the numbers have turned out when you look at the data. The media has been hammering the real estate doom and gloom story since last summer. Then gas prices go crazy just as we are getting into the spring buying season. And it doesn’t help that we have had one of the rainiest May’s on record.

But things are looking up. Inventory levels are starting to stabilize. One way or another, things will change in Washington before the end of the year (and since buyers don’t like uncertainty, that should help regardless of who wins the presidency). Gas prices will either drop eventually, or we’ll get used to the higher prices (as we always seem to do). And the sun is shining today!

Buyers can only sit on the sidelines for so long. Life goes on and eventually people have to make a change, regardless of how the market is doing. They get married, divorced, have babies, change jobs. Their need to make a housing change will help reduce the number of unsold properties…which will help the market stabilize.

So, if you are looking for a great deal on a home or condo, you may want to think about making a purchase this year instead of waiting for the market to hit bottom. The problem with trying to time the bottom is that we’ll only really know when that bottom hit when prices have been climbing for a while already.

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Possibly Related Posts:

1. St. Louis Region Housing Market Report – 2009 Condo Sales
2. St. Louis Region Housing Market Report – Condo Sales (Jan – June 2009)
3. St. Louis Region Market Report 2008 – Condo Sales
4. Slow New Construction Sales Result in an Oversupply of Homes

Tagged as: Condos & Villas, St. Louis City