Real Estate Market Update for Athens, GA – June 2024
Here at 5Market Realty, we create monthly videos about the current Athens area real estate market. In this video, we also discuss home prices and homes sales in East Athens, Five Points, NormalTown, and West Athens. Transcript below:
“Hey there, if you follow us here on our YouTube channel or our website, you know my name is Scott Talley. I am the owner-broker of Five Market Realty here in Athens, Georgia, where we like to do monthly market updates like this, keeping our clients, our past clients, and our contacts informed of what we see in the Athens area real estate market.
We also do videos for new listings. So if you’re interested in Athens area real estate, you’re looking to buy, looking to sell, moving to the area, possibly looking for an investment property, or even a parent that’s looking for a condo or something like that in the Athens area, be sure to click subscribe, and you’ll be updated when we have a new video or a new listing to share with you. But today, we’re going to talk about what we’ve seen through the first five months now that it’s June in the market. And in the month of May, we saw home sales bounce back, but we also saw price decreases come up a little bit. So we’re going to talk about what we’re seeing in the market. If you follow these videos, you know we like to cover four main things. We like to cover new listings, days on market, average home sale price, and of course, the total amount of homes sold. We do that with Clarke and Oconee County, and we’ve been doing that since, I guess it’s really been since Co, almost a little over three years now that we’ve been looking through this, and we like to track these numbers to see what’s happening in our market.
So let’s go ahead and pull up what we’ve seen year to date. Total new listings, that’s the good news, 999 year to date, which is almost in line with 2022 and actually a little over 16% better than last year. One of the trends you’re going to hear me say a little bit is it’s better than last year, but it’s not great. 2023 was not good. 2024 is better, but it’s not outstanding. Days on market is up a little bit. Small typo there, it’s actually up, not down, but 44 days to 43. Price also, 470k in Clarke and Oconee County combined, over 450 last year, representing a little bit more of a historic gain relative to what we were seeing, 15, 17, 20%. And then of course, total homes sold, 715, which is only 16% behind 2022 and then about 16% better than last year. So again, it’s better than 2023, but it’s not great, it’s just better.
Year To Date
So let’s look at the month of May as a whole because it was significant as well. Now, the month of May, we saw 180 new listings, which looks like it’s a little bit behind last year. But the truth is, last year, May saw a real glut of listings in the Athens area, and that 180 is actually a pretty good number when we look at what we’ve done each month with new listings. Days on market is up 38 days. That’s obviously good for home buyers to see homes sitting a little bit longer. We’re seeing that slightly tick up. Average sold price, and keep in mind, this is just for the month of May, but it was just below $500,000. And so last slide, we were year to date for a little over 4%. In the month, we were a little over 5% up. Total homes sold, 192. That’s a big number, only slightly behind 2022. And remember, 2022, before the interest rate increases in April, wasn’t a terrible year. That’s when April and the rate started going up so quickly. And then we are about 11% ahead of 2023. What is it I said before? It’s better than 2023, but it’s not exactly great.
Clarke County versus Oconee County. Now, why we do this, or we do this now because previously, we’re combining these together to show you what kind of has been our traditional market. But the fact is now, if you’re a home seller, buyer in Oconee or Clarke, you’ve got a very different market to consider. And that’s one of the things we want to show you here.
So let’s just look at these big differences. You can see there’s a 54% difference in new listings, a lot less than Oconee, days on market slightly higher, about 30%, at 53 days. Average sold price, significantly, it’s over 600 in Oconee County. Then, of course, the total homes sold. This is year to date, 210. 210 is not a big number, really. Neither is 498. But there’s more than double that amount for that’s sold here in Clarke County. So really, of the combined numbers when I was doing that before, 70% of those numbers are coming out of Clarke County. So here’s my point:
If you’re a home buyer in Oconee County and you’re waiting around for something, you might need to be aware that what you’re waiting for might not come along. And if it does, you’re going to have a lot of competition.
So if you need a home and you find something you like and that you can afford, might be time to consider acting. If you’re a home seller, you still got to get the price right. Trust me, I can show you that in a minute. But that is a very different market than Clarke County right now. Monthly inventory of homes. This is something we’ve done for a while now that I’m pulling. What is the active amount of homes, not active contingent, but a lot of these days, and these numbers are going to be like the second or third of the month. So I’m pulling it right after the first or on the first.
Look here, 320 active homes for sale in Clarke and Oconee County. That was June 2nd. And that is active in, you know, for sale, not under a contract with a contingency, just actually with a sign up and no contract. You can see the trend here from all the way down to what’s going on. I don’t have to explain that to you, but basically, we are seeing a slow drip of inventory. What’s going on is two things. We’re slightly getting more listings, and the buyer demand is down, and these homes are being absorbed slightly slower. So right now, we’re at 320, which isn’t a huge glut of homes to be for sale. But if I were to track this number down past where we were in June of 23, we would see some of these numbers below 200, well below 232. So if you could track this line further down, you’re going to see what it’s doing. It’s going straight up, a slow drip of increasing inventory. We’re going to talk about why that might be something for you to consider if you’re a home seller.
Total Monthly Home Sales
Here we are, monthly total home sales. We talked a little bit about this. 200. Let me move my head back up. That’s where we wanted to be. I’ve been putting this dotted line here for so long, probably a couple years now. Then, as you can see right there, we’ve got 192. Right here is what’s going on today, and that’s a big improvement. We’re almost to that 200 number. May was really good. We saw a lot of sales starting in April and May, and a lot of closings go down. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in June and July because come back here with me. May, June, July, we were very level. We were tracking slightly behind those times, and then we had this big improvement.
So what happens now is what’s going to tell the tale of our year. I think we’re probably in the peak now, and I’m going to explain that to you in a minute. This is the monthly new listings. So let me go ahead and break this out and get these things out here for you. January 2023, 99. That’s what we were seeing in monthly new listings, Clarke and Oconee County. If you remember, this was a bad time in our market. Okay, we’re about to go through a really slow period. Here we are in January of 2024. We started this year with a lot of optimism on interest rates, and we saw a lot of inventory come to market. And that’s really what’s helped us out because we started the year with a lot more inventory than we had before. Four. And then here we are today at 180 with May. Now, I would like to see more than 180 new listings because we got more in what would be March and April. But considering the fact that we had 180 back in January, that’s why the year is performing better. And again, 2024 is better than 2023. It’s just not outstanding.
Now, this is something new that I’m doing. You know, we’ve looked at some different things. I wanted to share some different information with you. The source is actually Infosparks, which is a new tool we have in the Athens MLS that we can break out more information that’s a little different, a little bit more specific to maybe a neighborhood, possibly an area of town. And what you got right here, if you can follow me, is you’ve got green is Normal Town, yellow is Five Points, blue is East Athens, and again, this burgundy kind of magenta is West Athens. So what that bar graph represents is closed sales in each area. I don’t have downtown. I don’t have Clarke County as a whole. I don’t have Winterville. So there’s more sales than that in Clarke County, but it’s not exactly something that shouldn’t be paid attention to because what I want to note here is right there, there’s 32 sales in Five Points, 18 in Normal Town. Folks, that’s why the market there has been as hot as it was for pricing there. There’s not as much out there, but we are seeing a slow drip of inventory.
High Transaction Volume In East Athens
If you drive around some of the neighborhoods, especially Five Points, you might be noticing a few more signs. But here’s the big thing I want to point out to you is how significant East Athens is to our market. That market right there, if that was all of Clarke County, which is not all, it would represent 50% of the transactions. But there’s 126 in East Athens relative to a lot smaller when you compare to West Athens, Five Points, and of course, Normal Town. Couple reasons for that. There’s more land in East Athens than people realize. There’s also a lot of condos. Condos have a tendency to transact, especially in a college town. But that’s a significant thing to realize, especially the Realtors out there looking for business. Now, East Athens has more transactions. Sorry, I forgot to pull that up. But now we’re looking at the average price per square foot. And essentially, this is the same thing again, but with Clarke County. I’ve got Oconee here in the magenta burgundy, Normal Town green, Five Points yellow, and East Athens is blue. And the thing I want to show you there, $200 per square foot is currently our entry level. I remember when that was the high point. 250 was the high point. We got to 290 a square foot before Covid and thought that was, what are we doing? And here we sit today.
Price Per Square Foot
Now, keep in mind, 361 is the average price per square foot right now. And Five Points, there are homes that are getting more than that. Of course, Normal Town’s usually just right behind, still above 300 at 318. And even right here in Oconee County, the average is definitely over 200, 225 square foot. Now, East Athens, 199-200, that is basically your entry level in the current climate. Lastly, I want to go right here, and this is pending sales. So this is something that I want to show you the trends of the market and what you might need to consider if you’re a home seller, possibly even a home buyer right now.
Are We At The Real Estate Peak of 2024?
So what I’m going to show you right here, as you can look, that is May 2021. That’s the peak. I don’t have a star there. So this is right here. This color is Clarke County, green is Oconee. As you can see here at the top. Now, the numbers are different because there’s going to be more in Clarke than Oconee, as we’ve just learned. But you can see how the ebbs and flows are perfectly aligned with each other. So right here, the peak of the market, 500, but May 2021, that must have been the extravaganza, the smorgasbord it was for everybody in the real estate industry between the sales, between everything going on, mortgages, the refinances, all of it. Let’s go forward a year later to this star. That’s over 400 in May of 2022. It’s about the time we saw the interest rate hikes come down. And so these pending home sales were still strong, and they went way down, as you’ve seen before.
Here we are in 2023 with this other star. Look what you’re noticing. Peak 2021, peak 2022, peak 2023, and then here we are today at the same thing. What is it? It’s a little better than 2023. It’s not as great as before here in 2021, but it’s better. And my point is we might be at the peak. If you’re a home seller, you need to consider that. We’ll cover that in our factors to understand as how we like to end things. Thank you for sticking with me for 10 plus minutes, running and rambling on here on a Tuesday after Monday afternoon, actually. Factors to understand, without rates falling, we are in peak 2024.
We can’t predict the rates, we can’t control the rates, but what I just demonstrated to you is there’s a good chance the activity is going to be at its peak right now.
So if you have a home that’s been sitting on the market, it’s time to consider your price. If you have done that and you made the adjustment recently, you’re probably going to be fine. But if you need to sell, you need to reevaluate your price. Home buyers, do not be scared off. There are actually negotiations happening. Some properties, yes, they are getting 99% of their asking price and are moving fast. But there are opportunities. And as the year goes on, like I said, regardless of what we can’t control, we don’t know interest rates, what could happen, but there might be opportunities and things for you to be able to find a house with some incentives.
NAR Lawsuit – What To Expect
Lastly, I also want to cover the NAR lawsuit, which are probably going to have to do for several months. So much confusion out there. We’re even hearing ads now that people are putting out. They’re actually confusing. Let me be clear. There’s been no change to commission rate or structure. Commissions are always negotiable. They always have been. A commission is what is agreed upon between a client and a listing agent or a buyer broker, and they have not changed. What has changed is buyer agreements will be in writing. If you’re working with an agent, if you’re calling Zillow, you’re probably going to have to sign something that says you have an agreement in writing with this buyer agent. And the other thing is we mentioned before, commissions in the MLS. That’s something you may not see unless you’re a real estate professional. They’ll no longer be advertised in there. We have a full video updating you on this. Be happy to look it up, or we can share it with you.
Lastly, contact a professional when you have questions or you need help. This is our group here. The subtitles might be covering our contact information, but it’s [email protected]. Anybody in this photo here can help you. We can help you sell, help you buy, find an investment property, locate a condo, or even talk a year in advance over some plans you need to make to your home, to your property, before you’re ready to sell in 2025. Thanks for sticking with me for over 12 minutes. This was a doozy. Stay cool this summer, have a great June. I hope your summer’s off to a great start. Thanks again.”