How Are Alabaster Home Sales?
It’s been a while since I have shared a comprehensive breakdown of Alabaster home sales so I thought now is as good a time as any. With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging its effect on single-family home sales is unfolding daily.
In my real estate appraisal practice, I perform a large number of appraisals in and around Alabaster. This area has steadily grown over the years and is sought after by home buyers due to its convenient location and highly ranked school system.
After breaking off from the Shelby County school system several years ago the schools have been upgraded and the $88 million new Thompson High School was opened in 2017. Shortly after, Thompson won the 7A State Football Championship.
All of these positive moves within Alabaster has made it a popular choice for home buyers. Today I thought I would share with you some recent real estate stats as well as home sales trends that have occurred over the last several years.
Months of Inventory
At the time of this writing, there is a little over 2 months worth of inventory in Alabaster. What this means is that if there were no more listings added it would take approximately 2 months to sell the existing inventory considering the recent rate of sales.
Two months of inventory is borderline between there being a seller’s market and the market is balanced. This has been the trend recently, which has contributed to the increase in sales prices
Active Listings
The number of active listings has slowly trended downward since 2017, however, there have been seasonal upticks during the summer months. This overall downward trend in supply is similar to other areas and has become the norm.
An increase in new construction would go a long way in relieving the pent up demand along with existing homeowners putting their home on the market. Existing owners have been hesitant to put their homes on the market during this time of COVID-19, however, as time passes and people get used to the new norm this may change.
I also thought it was interesting to compare supply and demand on the same graph. You can see the gradual decline in housing supply (like in the above graph) as well as the seasonal trend in sales.
Median Sold Price
As you might expect, with the downward trend in listings, median prices have increased. At this time it is not uncommon to see multiple offers and backup contracts on the homes that are currently listed.
This has resulted in a steady increase in the median sold price. I believe the median price is a better stat to look at because it provides a better picture of what is happening compared to the average price, which is more easily influenced by high and low sales.
Price Per Square Foot
I don’t typically concentrate on price per square foot, however, I thought I would take a look at it this time. You can read more about my thoughts on price per square foot from this previous post so I won’t dwell on that here.
I think you should be careful when looking at price per square foot because it can be deceiving, however, when looking at trends of hundreds of sales it can provide us with some context as to how the market as a whole is doing. Take a look at the trend in Alabaster since 2017:
You can also see a trend within a trend. The overall price per square foot has increased over the 3.5 year period studied but you can also see that the first and fourth quarters are typically the lowest during the year. This makes sense because the 2nd and 3rd quarters, which occur during the spring and summer, are the hottest season of the year to buy and sell homes.
New Construction Sales
Where are all of the new construction sales in Alabaster? From January 2019 to present the two most active neighborhoods for new construction have been Mallard Landing and Shelby Farms.
The median home price in these neighborhoods is $258,000 with the median price of new construction in all of Alabaster being approximately the same. This makes it very affordable when compared to other areas around Birmingham. To illustrate this, nearby Hoover, AL has a median price of $467,000 for new construction sales during the time period noted.
Pandemic vs No Pandemic
The last graph I want to share is the trend in the number of homes sold during the pandemic, from March to July. The graph below shows these monthly sales from 2017 to 2020.
What stands out to me with this graph is the obvious low number of sales for 2020 during the pandemic. It is expected that overall sales from March to July would increase, however, the comparison between the years shows the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2020 sales from March to July with the sales in July being more normal for that time of the year.
So far Alabaster home sales trends have pretty much mirrored those on the national level. The recession brought on by the pandemic has been “V” shaped in that there was a sharp decline and an almost immediate recovery. Some experts predict that this could turn into a “W” if we see another wave of COVID-19 but so far this has not occurred.
Question
So what are your thoughts on Alabaster home sales over the past several years? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below and as always thanks for reading.
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