2019 Las Cruces Market Report

Hi, I'm Kayla Fikany with Z Real Estate. Welcome to the 2019 Las Cruces market report.
This is our year-end report with all the past year's information. I think this is the one that you've all been waiting for and not just because I'm back in one of these videos.

So the 2019 market was very strong. It continued its year-over-year increase both in price and number of homes sold for the last seven years.
The total volume of homes sold increased from four hundred and thirty seven million to four hundred and sixty-four million for a 6 percent increase in total real estate volume. The number of homes rose in 2019 from two thousand one hundred and ninety-three to two thousand two hundred and fifty-three. That's an increase of sixty homes, or just under 3 percent.

Price also increased from just over one hundred ninety-nine thousand to two hundred and six thousand, or roughly a three percent increase.

So I know what a lot of you are thinking. You're thinking, well, that's not a very big increase from 2018 to 2019. And it is fairly minimal. But I want to give you a little bit of historical perspective as well. In 2012, the average home price was one hundred sixty-seven thousand and twenty nineteen, it's 206. That's a twenty-two, almost twenty-three percent increase. As far as the number of homes sold, in 2012, we sold thirteen hundred homes and in 2019 we sold twenty-two hundred. That's a 70 percent increase. So even though the increase from year-to-year was fairly minimal over the past 12 months, the historical data is still really strong. The market's still improving both on the number of homes sold and price.
The biggest story of 2019 was interest rates. Most analysts expected the interest rates to increase as they had in 2018. However, 2019 did not deliver on those expectations.

At the beginning of 2019, the interest rate was 4.5 percent, according to Freddie Mac. However, the interest rates continued to fall throughout the year, with the lowest being 3.49 percent on a 30 year fixed mortgage.

So what does that mean to the consumer? Well, let's take an example. If you were to put 5 percent down on a two hundred thousand dollar house, your principal and interest payment would come out to about nine hundred and sixty four dollars. Now, let's say that same person decided to buy in September when interest rates hit their very low. That same person could basically buy a two hundred twenty-five thousand dollar house for the same monthly payment as what would have been a two hundred thousand dollar house in January. It's a 12.5 percent increase in the monthly buying power of that person. So interest rates really drove not only price, but allowed more people in the market that might not have been able to get into the market at the beginning of the year.

So one of the questions that we always get is, is this a buyer or seller market? And it's very easily defined. If you have more than six months of inventory, it's a buyer's market. If you have less than six months of inventory, it's a seller's market. So our sellers market is going to continue. As of today, we only have five hundred and seven homes on the market. So that's only a couple months of inventory, so it is certainly a seller's market. So if you are in the market to sell, you know, things will continue to look strong.

Even though we're technically in a seller's market, we're in a very unique position because of interest rates. There's still opportunities out there for buyers to take advantage of those interest rates and purchase a home.

So as always, Las Colinas led the way for the number of homes sold with a total of three hundred and twelve and the average sales price of one hundred and ninety- four thousand. That's only nine additional homes over last year and a four thousand dollar average sales price increase.
Sonoma East followed Las Colinas with one hundred and eighty- eight homes sold and at an average price of two hundred sixty- three thousand. That's five additional homes from what we saw last year and an eight thousand dollar increase in the average sales price.
Sonoma West had one hundred and eighty-three homes sold at an average of two hundred and forty-five thousand, which is only one left home over last year with an average sales price, however, of a six thousand dollar increase.

The most expensive home of twenty nineteen sold in Picasso Hills for a cool million dollars.

So I think it's now time for your predictions of what 2020 has to hold for us.

He obviously watches way too much ESPN bowl protections.

Well, of course. I mean, who doesn't? But since we are making predictions and if you don't want to, you know I will.
In 2020, I think we're going to see a lot of the same. We do have some factors that are going to come into play, it is an election year and election years can always bring volatility to the market. Although historically, election years are also pretty strong for real estate. So that's something to keep an eye on. If I had to make a prediction right here and now, I'd say that we will probably end up at slightly less transactions. But I do think the price of homes is going to continue to inch up. We're not going to see huge increase in appreciation. I do think we'll see a little.

One of my other predictions is that interest rates are going to stay fairly steady of where they are. I don't think that they're going to have big increases. I don't think we're going to see the feds increase rates. I think that they're going to stay fairly flat. I don't think that they're going to want to change things in the election cycle.

We want to just take a real quick minute to say thank you. We want to thank everybody for your continued support and watching our videos. We will also want to thank all of our clients, our friends, our families for all your support. We couldn't do it without you. We wish you all the very, very best in 2020.

Remember, real estate is local, neighborhood by neighborhood and price range by price range. If you're considering selling let us analyze your homes specifically and if you're looking to buy every real estate market has an opportunity in it, you just have to know where to find it.