Surviving the Pocono Real Estate Market Turbulence | August 2023 Poconos, PA Housing Market Update

Picture this: you've been watching the Pocono real estate market closely, but the skyrocketing 30-year mortgage rate, which is on the brink of a 7% two-decade peak, has you questioning your next steps. The market's reaction hasn't been encouraging either - new listings in Monroe County are down 13.6%, while pending sales and inventory have decreased by 22.6% and 18.8% respectively. Surprisingly, the median sale price is up 6.9%! Tune in as we dissect these elements and ponder what might be coming next, including a potential softening in prices for single-family homes in the Poconos.

But wait, there's more. In these challenging times, it's crucial to have a skilled team by your side, especially when you're considering investing in real estate. We've assembled a powerhouse team at Skill Property Finders to help you through this. We'll share our first-hand experiences in navigating these tricky waters and highlight the importance of understanding the unique dynamics of your market. Better yet, we'll reveal the ins and outs of our services, and how we can assist in finding your next short term rental, Airbnb, or investment property. Are you ready to learn from our experiences and insights on the current Pocono market? Let's get started!

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Call Annabel Perdomo at (718) 551-1909
or email at: annabel.perdomo@exprealty.com
EXP. Realty: 1888-397-7352 ext. 137

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Chapters

• 0:00 Pocono Market Update
• 9:06 Skill Property Finders

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:27

In this episode I'm going to share with you the month of August Pocono Market update here for the Pocono region from Monroe and Pike County, so you can make better decisions as to whether you want to buy, invest or sell your home in the Pocono. Let's get right into the content, but before we do, make sure that if you want to continue to get content just like this, make sure you like subscribe to the channel. Really appreciate that. Let's get right into it. Higher mortgage rates, along with elevated sales prices and lack of housing inventory, has continued to impact the market activity during the summer home buying season. The average 30-year rate mortgage has remained above 6.5% since May. Actually, it's close to 7 now 7.1 or so, recently hitting a two decade high in August, according to Freddie Mac. As a result, existing home sales have continued to slow nationwide, dropping 2.2% month over month as of last measure, with sales down 16.6% as the same time last year according to the National Association of Realtors 16.6% drop in sales. This makes perfect sense. As prices are here and they continue to stay here, they're not coming down. So, as prices are up here and interest rates are coming up, what's happening is you, the buyer. Your income is not coming up with these interest rates and these mortgage payments, and what's happening is that the home prices are still up here. They're supposed to. When interest rates goes up, prices of homes are supposed to come down so affordability can happen. But what's happening is prices of home are still up here, interest rates are at an all time high compared to the pricing of homes, and then income is still down here. This is one of the reasons why we have the riders' strike happening. We had UPS strike happening. We have all kinds of strikes happening. We have now the auto industry and strike. There's a bunch of strikes happening right now in our country, and this makes a lot of sense because inflation is killing Middle America.

Speaker 0: 2:20

It continues to say that new listings in Monroe County were down 13.6% to 367. Pending sales decreased 22.6% to 260. Inventory shrunk 18.8% to 814 units. So this makes sense, right? People have these low interest rates. Where are they going at these prices and these interest rates? Where are they going? They're not going to put their house on the market. What's happening is that Middle America is getting squeezed and is getting crushed and something needs to happen. The feds were thinking, hey, we're going to raise interest rates. It's going to change everything and it really hasn't made much of a change. If you look at the prices of gas right now, the grass is again very high. Look at this Price. Gaze upward, as the medium sale price was up 6.9%. So up, not down. It's supposed to be coming down as interest rates go up, but no, it's going up. Days in the market increased 7.7% to 42 days. I'm actually experiencing longer days than that. I'm going to show you in a more detailed spreadsheet in a minute. Month supply of inventory was up 6.3% to 3.4 months, so that means inventory is going up Again. All of the fundamentals are lining up and are pointing that we should start seeing a softening in prices for single family.

Speaker 0: 3:33

Falling home sales have done little to cool home prices you see my point exactly so which have continued to sit at record levels nationally thanks to limited supply of homes for sale. According to the National Association of Realty, we were 1.1 million homes for sale heading into August and 14.6% fewer homes than the same period last year, for 3.3 months apply at the current sales price. The shortage of homes for sale has boosted competition for available properties and is driving prices higher Again. As they always say, real estate is a market by market and region by region dependent. We're not seeing that here in the Poconos. I can tell you that for fact. We recently put a property and I'm going to talk about that in a minute on the market for $185,000. And that's getting action, while another property we have in the market for $335,000 or $30,000 is getting zero play. We've had one showing in three weeks Reporting a national medium existing home price of $406,000 at a 1.9% increase from a year earlier. There might be competition, but I can assure you that here in the Poconos we do not have competition for the 300,000 plus properties.

Speaker 0: 4:44

I'm going to show you right now, in a minute, what is really happening there. And if you look at this graph here, we had a median price here in the Poconos mountains of $292,700. 302 is the average sale price, but the median sale price is claiming it's up to $292,000. Let's go to new listings. In the month of August it was $565,000. Comes for sale we saw a flattening from July to August. Pending sales we saw an actual uptick, but still very low. We go to closed sales $340,000. Guys, that's brutal. Realtors in this market are hurting. No-transcript Bad Median days in the market. So 20,. But I'm going to show you more real live data on this. This is a monthly supply, as of the month of August was 3.2.

Speaker 0: 5:30

If you're an investor, you want to buy or you want to sell a property here in the Poconos, by the way, check out my realtor. If you're looking to sell your property, make sure you hit up my realtor. She's awesome. Her link and her stuff should be coming up on the screen If you need a realtor to list your properties. But here's what you can expect Median 12 showings to go pending, in other words, to go on the contract is going to take 12 people to see your property, to go on the contract. The average is 17.8. So you got to show your property 18 times before you actually sell it. This is what's happening in the market While we were hot. If we go back, it was taking 9 in April of 2020. It was taking 12 showings and it was significantly lower than that. All right, guys.

Speaker 0: 6:11

So this is real life data for the month of September 2023. As you see, as I record this, this is from Monroe and Pike County in the Poconos. So this is the heart of the Poconos data. So, right about now, I'm about to contradict and kill everything that they just said for August. Okay, because this is live. Live as fresh as it can get. Look at the time. This is time stamped and everything.

Speaker 0: 6:32

Look at the sold. The median sales price is 231,000. The average is 232. Look at the average days in the market ADOM, 60 days. Look at the cumulative days in the market. The cumulative days crap is total crap. That's not real information. That's not the way the market is right now.

Speaker 0: 6:50

Then look at what's selling 194 units sold in the Monroe and Pike County area here in the Poconos Mountains. Make sure, if you need a realtor, you can call Annabel Perdomo. Her link is in the show notes. Make sure, if you need a realtor to sell your house or move your property, she's the one that gets us top dollars in our properties. So if you look at this 194 units sold in the market 60 days Look at the price point that's selling.

Speaker 0: 7:13

Let's go a little further down. Let's see of what's extended. Look at what properties are being extended. That means that the listing expired and is going back on the market and they extended the listing. Look at these. The median list price is 237. Look at this. 237 is the average list price for the month of September.

Speaker 0: 7:31

Now Look at what is expiring on the market 199,000 dollar properties expiring, but look at the 300,000. These things are just not selling. These things are not moving in this marketplace. Look at the average days on the market for those properties 282,200 cumulative days on the market 294,000. This goes to my point of affordability is out the window Now.

Speaker 0: 7:56

You may be in California. You may be watching this. You may be in New York City and you may be watching this. You may be in New Jersey. You may be in Seattle and you may be watching and you may be thinking well, that's pretty low, that's low end in our market. This is why I always say it's market by market dependent.

Speaker 0: 8:10

So you got to look at your market and what's affordable in your market because it goes on people's income, based on us here in the Pocono Mountain. This is too high for people's incomes and is reflecting in the data. The data is showing us right here 200 plus days for properties priced at $300,000 or not more. So if you want to sell your house quickly you're an investor or you are a homeowner you want to sell your house quickly I'm going to give you a piece of advice to ones that are selling at 230,000, $240,000 or less. Now, if you have a strategy and you're an investor, now I'm going to put my investor head on and I'm talking to you as an investor. If you're an investor and you want to rent your house, you want to buy a property and you want to rent it, make sure it capsules. That's a different formula, but this is just pure data on what's really happening in the market. To those of us that flip properties, this data is extremely important. To those realtors that want to work with guys like me that are investors, this is extremely important data that you should learn how to read and master so you can share.

Speaker 0: 9:06

Anyways, I appreciate you guys watching. Remember to like and subscribe, and if you know someone that's looking to sell a property there in trouble and they want to sell a property, make sure you check out Skill Property Finders. And you're looking to buy real estate in the Poconos? We at Skill Property Finders are finding those. Make sure you go to the link below Skill Property Finders. We will help you find the property. Your next short term rental Airbnb, whatever it is that you're looking for next, my sales team is full of rock stars. I have a team that's full of rock stars and we're getting good deals even in this market. Make sure you like subscribe to the channel. I appreciate you guys watching Peace out.