In July, the median sales price for a home in New Orleans was $315,000. That beats the previous record set only 3 months ago, so this is no fluke. So far this year, prices are up 6.3% compared to the first 7 months of 2019.
It took 24 days to get a home under contract in July, a full 9 days quicker than last year and the lowest number since 2014. The market looks to have caught up from the COVID lockdown pause, with closed sales up 15% from last July’s number.
So what’s going on? There are fewer listings on the market than we usually see in July — down 9% from 2019 — but the number of new listings hitting the market is trending up. That means there’s a lot of buyer demand out there. We could still be picking up the slack from the buying slowdown in March and April.
The condo market continues to be soft in New Orleans, with sales down 24% from the first seven months of last year. The median sales price has declined 7.6% for that time, as well. This part of the market was hit harder by the pandemic, especially since so many condos here are second homes for out-of-town buyers.
The rest of this year is going to be fascinating to track. Having the real estate market move in the opposite direction of the economy makes me nervous. My best guess is the pent-up demand that built up from the COVID lockdown will fade and this seller’s market will become more balanced. There are a couple other trends we could see as a direct result of the pandemic. I’ll talk about those in my next post.
