Are you thinking of buying or selling a home in Fort Thomas, KY? Then, we’ve got you covered with our latest Fort Thomas real estate market update.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
FORT THOMAS KY REAL ESTATE
What’s the Fort Thomas real estate market looking like in 2019? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this video.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back. This is Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and teamsztanyo.com where we are helping families find their way home. Today, we wanted to do a market spotlight on Fort Thomas, Kentucky, my home town where I choose to live with my family, and I love this area. We did a video last year in 2018 on Fort Thomas, so we just want to follow up, see what’s going on right in the heart of the selling season here in the summer of 2019, and take a look at the stats and see what’s going on with the bigger trends in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Let’s dive right in. I got a few reports we want to look at, and then after those reports, maybe talk about what are some of the things you should be thinking about if you’re thinking of either buying or selling a home in Fort Thomas.
AVERAGE SALES PRICE TO LIST PRICE IN FORT THOMAS, KY
Let’s look at this. The first report I pulled up here is from… What we’re looking at here is the average sales price to list price comparison. The reason I wanted to pull this one up is because we’re really seeing no change. The last few years, it’s been a seller’s market. There’s no question about that. We’ve been kinda harping on that like, “Hey, look, there’s low supply, there’s high demand. If you want to sell your home, this is a great time to sell.”
What we’re seeing with these numbers is, and basically what this is sharing is what sale price do the homes get for their list price? In June of ’17, that was 98.52%, and then June of 2019, virtually no change. You’re at 98.47%. Now, if you happen to make one price drop, that number goes down slightly to around 95%, but what we’re seeing over the last two years here is it’s remarkably the same. If you’re going to list your home, if you price it right, you should be getting about 98% of your list price. Make sure you’re working with an agent to list it right and price it right. It’s one of the most important things you can do when you list your home.
AVERAGE AND MEDIAN SALES PRICES IN FORT THOMAS, KY
But let’s go on to the next report. This is really interesting to me that while the list-to-sale price has stayed very constant, the average and the median price are not. If you go back to 2017, we were really hot. The average sale price in Fort Thomas in June 2017 was about 298,000, and here in June 2019, that’s all the way down to 266,000, a difference of almost about 11%. Same thing with the median price. In June 2017, it was at 250,000. In June ’19, it’s at 221,000, a difference of about 11.5%.
That’s really interesting to me. What is that telling us? It’s not necessarily saying we’re in a buyer’s market yet, but we are seeing kind of the trend, the shift. If you look around in June 2018 here, you’re seeing similar numbers. It looks like the median price was down in 2018 from 2017 in June. It’s about the same here in 2019, maybe even slightly higher, but overall, in the last two years, we’ve seen about a 10% dip.
We were telling you to sell your house. Maybe you didn’t take our word for it, but that’s a trend line you want to be keeping a look at here. What we’ve seen over the last few years is sellers pushing that limit for how high they could sell their home for. That’s what happens in the market. This year, we’re seeing buyers are saying no and that that average and median sale price is going down a bit.
TOTAL RESIDENTIAL HOME UNITS SOLD IN FORT THOMAS, KY
The next thing I want to look at is just purely economic slide here, which is supply and demand and the story that it’s telling us here. First of all, we want to look at the total number of units sold. In June 2017, that was 81 units. In June 2019, that was 72. Excuse me, that’s not sold, but for sale. There was 81 units for sale versus 72, a difference of about 11%. Now, the number sold was 13 versus 12, about the same. It’s down about 8%. What does that telling us?
It’s telling us that even though the average and median prices are going down slightly, they’re still very, very low amount of inventory on the market. In fact, it’s even lower now than it was two years ago. While the average and median prices might be down, the inventory is still down, which means that you can still probably get your home sold quickly, which is what I want to look at on this last chart, which is the average days on market. In June 2017, the average days on market, the number of homes that were sold from zero to 90 days was 37 versus 30, so that’s down slightly, 19%. 25% if you’re in that 90 to 180 range.
This one was interesting to me that houses that have been on market over 180 days, so over six months, jumped up 50%. Now, it’s a small sample size. It’s eight homes versus 12 homes, but what that tells me a little bit is that sellers have this idea that, “Hey, my neighbor sold for this much. I should be able to sell for at least this much,” and some of those people are leaving their houses on the market a little bit longer. That’s driving that number up.
Those are some of the market dynamics. I want to look at one other thing that’s always interesting to me in Fort Thomas, which if you live in Fort Thomas or if you sold in Fort Thomas or if you’ve bought in Fort Thomas, you know that it’s hard to get in. It’s the inventory’s always really low. Stuff always goes really, really fast. You have to move super fast.
SHOULD YOU SELL YOUR HOUSE AS A FSBO IN FT. THOMAS?
Another thing that a lot of sellers think of is, “Well, I don’t need an agent. I can just do ‘for sale by owner.'” What’s interesting to me, I just pulled this up on Zillow of have how many “for sale by owners” do we have on the market. This one’s interesting to me. There’s 12 up there right now. This one, let’s take a look at this, at 10 Ohio Avenue. It’s been on the market 57 days, and they just had a price cut of 15K.
This is what we see it a lot with “for sale by owners” is they tend to overprice. They come out hot, and they’re like, “Well, it’s Fort Thomas. Of course, it’ll sell for this much,” and now they’ve been on the market almost double the time that’s average in Fort Thomas, and they’re making a price cut. If you scroll down and look at some of these other “for sale by owners,” this one had a price cut of $50,000. 227 Highland Avenue. This one had a price cut of $15,000. This one’s been on the market 44 days. This one’s been on the market 92 days.
The “for sale by owner” route… This one’s been on the market 56 days. Sometimes it can work. Sometimes it means you’re going to be price cutting because a lot of times what you get when you’re “first sale by owner,” you’re going to get looky-loos, you’re going to get neighbors who want to come see it. You might not necessarily get qualified buyers that are working with a real estate agent. Just something to think about.
SUMMARY: IS IT TIME TO BUY OR SELL A HOME IN FORT THOMAS, KY
Overall, where’s the market stand, what should you be thinking about? If you’re looking to sell in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, it’s still a great time. Demand is still high. Supply’s still low. Now, the average price is starting to go down a little bit. Doesn’t mean you can’t get a great price for your home. Doesn’t mean that you can’t… now’s not a super time if you want to sell your home to have the least amount of hassle and sell it for as fast as possible.
Those are the things that are that when you’re selling a home, that’s always something to consider. How long is it going to take me? How many showings am I going to have to do? How long am I going to have to keep my house super clean? How long am I going to have to get the kids out? It’s still a really good time to sell.
If you’re a buyer, what you might want to be thinking about is working with an agent to find those spots of where could I get the price down just a little bit. Maybe sellers have stretched it a little too far, and the average and median price is down a little bit, and so maybe I can get a home for a little bit less than what I would’ve in 2018 or 2017.
If you’re thinking of buying or selling a home in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, we’d love for you to reach out to team Sztanyo. We live in Fort Thomas. We know the market really well. We’d love to help you find your way home. Thanks so much for watching this video. We’ll see you next time.