With another strong year in real estate coming to a close, let’s take a closer look at our local area to see where the numbers stacked up for 2017 sales. The Maryland Association of REALTORS (MAR), releases sales information on a monthly basis, but the figures for the state have not been released for December yet. However, through November of 2017, home sales are on a high note with a 22.3 percent increase year over year from 2016 to 2017. The average sales price per unit is up 1.9% in November with an average of $271,181 as compared to 2016’s number of $266,039.
Throughout the state, the year’s figures through November of 2017 show overall home sales increased by more than 5.3 percent, with 6,349 units settled compared to last year’s settled units number of 6,030. The state’s sales price average is sitting at $325,129, which reflects a 4.9 percent increase statewide over 2016. The average sales price is the weighted average of sales prices in a county, calculated by weighting the price of homes by the number of homes sold. To calculate the weighted average Maryland price, MAR weighs the average price for all 24 Maryland jurisdictions by the number of homes sold.
In Worcester County, there were 21 sales in 2017 that surpassed the $1MM mark. The majority of these properties were located in the town limits of Ocean City, with the highest sale coming in at $2.3MM in Sunset Island.
And, in November 2017, the pending units figure for Worcester County was 159, as compared to 2016’s number of 146. While there was not much movement year over year in the pending units category, there has been a sharp decline in active inventory on record for November 2017, with 1001 active units in 2017 as compared to 1340 units the same time one year ago. The months of inventory is also down from 10.3 in November 2016 to 6.3 in 2017.
Maryland monthly housing statistics are compiled by data as reported by MRIS and the Coastal Association of REALTORS®. For the purposes of this report, “units” are defined as the closed sales and “pending units” are properties under contract. Months of inventory are based on the current active inventory and monthly sales for the corresponding month. MAR publishes the Maryland Housing Statistics monthly; it is available through the Association’s website, www.mdrealtor.org.
Lauren Bunting is a licensed Associate Broker with Bunting Realty, Inc. in Berlin, MD.
Lauren Bunting is a Broker with Keller Williams Realty of Delmarva in Ocean City, Maryland.
