Since I acquired my Louisiana license last March, I’ve been digging into the market stats for Orleans parish to get a good feel for what’s happening and when it happens. One thing I noticed is that, with the smaller sample size in New Orleans, I need to take monthly stats with a grain of salt. A relatively small swing in numbers can translate into a percentage change that looks huge. As a result, I tend to zoom out and look for longer-term trends. To that end, with 2019 in the books, I’m looking at how things have moved over the last 5 years.
First, take a look at the median sales price for residential listings in 2019 compared to the previous four years:
I notice an interesting, but not unusual pattern. Prices went up a modest .8% in 2019, but that followed a jump of 6.7% the previous year. That’s very similar to how the market behaved between 2015 and 2017 — a big jump followed by a much smaller one. Markets have a habit of pausing to catch their breath. If that pattern continues this year, the median price will increase around 5.5% – 6.5%. I’ll follow up in a few months to see if we’re headed in that direction.
Next, let’s look at supply and demand. The number of new listings hitting the market went down…
…and the number of sales went up.
As a result, with a lower supply and more demand, the median number of days it took to sell a house took a pretty good drop.
Overall, the numbers show me a pretty balanced market in New Orleans. There are 6.5 months of inventory available right now, and the National Association of Realtors considers 6 months to be an equal balance between a buyer’s and seller’s market. As buyers who are about to head down to find our New Orleans home, we’ve noticed a lot of properties we like going under contract in the last couple of weeks. Stay tuned.
