Comparing My 2018 Housing Market Predictions To Reality

As shown above, I was a bit too conservative in predicting 2018 home sales.  After we saw a 5% decline in the pace of home sales between 2016 and 2017 I was predicting we'd see another (smaller) decline of 2% between 2017 and 2018.  As it turns out, we actually saw almost a 3% *increase* between 2017 and 2018.  Even though we had low inventory levels all year long, buyers still found homes to buy -- which created a slight increase in the pace of sales, and a further decline in "days on market" in 2018.

And -- I was a bit too conservative on the change in median sales price as well!  After a 3% increase between 2016 and 2017 I was predicting another 3% increase between 2017 and 2018.  But no, we actually saw almost a 7% increase between 2017 and 2018 up to $212,000. 

Please note, again, that this 7% increase in the median sales price might be (almost certainly is?) the result of a change in the mix of what (detached vs. attached) as opposed to all values actually increasing by 7%.  Read more here.

Stay tuned for some predictions for 2019 in the coming days!