Numbers from the January 2022 report from OneKey MLS indicated a “strong” real estate market throughout the company’s market area, including Queens, with the pending sales median prices on homes leveling off, according to OneKey MLS’ CEO Jim Speer.
“We’re actually seeing that the pending prices, which is what they’re going under contract as is $668,000 and it’s [been] right in that ballpark since August [2021],” Speer told QNS in February.
He added that although July 2021 had higher pending prices at over $705,500, the report shows that prices have “really leveled off” across the board.
“That’s a very good thing for the homebuying public that’s out there,” Speer said.
The report, which shows numbers for single and multi-family homes, condos and co-ops, indicated that the pending prices from January 2022 ($668,500) went up just slightly from December 2021 ($660,000).
In the past, Speer said that the real estate market went through a long period of price growth, where the increase in pending sales prices, year over year, reached as high as 30%.
“I think we may have reached a point where the buyers are not going to pay more than they are now,” he said. “It could be that we found that it was reaching a point that it wasn’t sustainable, that the buyers really weren’t going to pay more than that, which is what has caused a leveling off of the prices.”
The CEO said that he predicts that prices will stay in a similar range going forward and that they are unlikely to fluctuate majorly in either direction.
“We’re still at the point where there’s just a great demand for properties for homes to be purchased, which will continue as long as the interest rates stay low. I would anticipate that we’ll still stay in this leveling off of the prices,” Speer said.
But an increase in interest rates could mean less demand, depending on how high rates go.
“I would think if they go up to 4%, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. If they go up to 5% it probably will be a bit of a drag in the housing market,” Speer said.
In terms of the sold property median price, or the closing price on a home, the report indicates that it’s been at around $685,000 since November 2021.
The percent change year over year for the median pending price is 4.5% over last year and 5.1% over last year for the sold median price in Queens.
Speer said that prices continue to increase year over year but “just not to the extent that we were nine months ago or so” due to COVID-19 causing a pause in the real estate market. Currently, he said that the numbers reflect a “true real estate market.”
“From our POV, the real takes are that the real estate market is still going strong and that we’ve had a leveling off of prices and that continues,” he said.
