Jessica Mathews / newws@whmi.com


Home sales increased for the second straight month while inventory was at a five-year high for July in Southeast Michigan.

That’s per the latest numbers released by Realcomp for July.

Griffith Realty President Scott Griffith talked with WHMI about sellers still trying to cash in, but interest rates are starting to slow buyers – speculating we could even see a slowdown in the housing market soon.

Griffith said the numbers sound good on the surface as July was good and represents the activity for the closings that took place in the late spring. He said pending sales are down nearly 15% for the next month compared year-over-year, which shows maybe some of the surge came out of the markets and the next report might not be as “buoyant” as this one.

In Livingston County, total sales were up 17.8% year-over-year; with a $425,000 median sales price. Washtenaw County was $440,000, Oakland County was $387,500, and Genesee County stood at $224,000.

For Livingston County, Griffith commented he thinks that that price will “take the wind out of the sails for a lot of buyers” – recognizing it’s a supply and demand world but at some point affordability comes in. He added short of some relief on interest rates, which is a possibility but it isn’t going to be dramatic, it certainly has to impact people when prices continue to go up.

Local listings year-over-year were up 20.1% - with many people still trying to cash in on the high prices. Griffith said he thinks a little bit of why listings are surging is the feeling – which he thinks is a popular belief - that things might slow down. He said people are looking at the opportunity to maximize their price now so there seems to be more activity – adding that ironically drives prices down when there’s more supply but they’ll see if that proves to be true or not.

Griffith further pointed out that there is a period as school begins where activity actually picks up as people are done with vacations, temperatures are moderating, and people who didn’t get to it this summer decide it’s time to get things done. He said it’s a fairly active market traditionally from now until the early fall – then they start to see some decrease in activity.

Griffith said activity has been much lower than what he expected in the mid-pricing range between $400,000 to $800,000 – which he thinks could still be related to warm days, school being out, and people taking those last vacations. But also with the pending sales being down, he said that could indicate there will start to be a slowdown in activity.

At some point, there will be certain breaking point. Griffith said nationally sales are down 2% and have been going down for a while and those markets that are down the most, tend to be the ones that had the greatest run up and were the most expensive. He said people can expect the same here in that prices at some point will have just sort of pushed as much as they can for a while and they have to acclimate.

July numbers are attached.