2012 Wrap up and 2013 Peoria Area Housing Market Outlook

If there could be one major headline for local real estate sales in 2012, it would be the decline of the inventory of homes, or rather, the continuation of declining new homes getting listed.

The inventory of homes dropped off the cliff to the lowest level since 2006. There were waaaaay fewer people putting their homes on the market. Also-there were fewer homes being built compared to 2006. The inventory of existing homes was down 24.4% and the inventory of new constructions was down 45.6%. New Constructions saw the biggest decrease in inventory of homes in 2012, which I believe will reverse in 2013 and show the biggest increase...new phases in Dunlap are being built in Wynncrest, Stonegate, Copper Creek, Fields Crossing, Sommer Place to name a few.

The months supply of homes in Nov 2012 saw a decrease of 34.6% with existing homes. However, for new constructions, there was a decrease of 60.3%, from 10.2 months supply in 2011 to 4.2 months in 2012. A 5-6 month supply is a balanced market. We haven't had a segment of our market under the balanced equation in a few years. As of Nov 2012, we had about a 5.5 month supply of homes which is a perfect balanced market. Aug 2009 saw the average highest month for inventory that year, in 2010 it was Sept, in 2011 it was June. In 2012 it was crazy drop. Buyers were buying homes in 2012, without the supply being restocked fast enough. At least up until the last month.

Going of the latest stats available, which is Nov. 2012, it shows a year to date decline of new listings of 1.1%, however a Nov. 2011 to Nov 2012 decline of 4.7%.


If there is any indicator of what lies ahead, it is an overall slowdown in the number of home sales-particularly exisiting sales for the next 2-3 months, with a larger increase in new construction sales.

While year to date (YTD) numbers show an increase in the number of pending transactions (+16.6%), the November 2011 to Nov 2012 numbers show a decrease of 11.4%. The 11 months prior to Nov 2012 have shown an increase in the number of pending transactions-every month, so this was the first decline in at least a year. With a decrease in pendings for Nov, it should project a decrease in closings for Dec 2012 compared to Dec 2011.

For closed transactions YTD, as well as Nov 11' to Nov 12', the number of closed transactions is up 17.1 and 17.8% respectively. Meaning the market remained strong up until Sept/Oct. What happened at that time to decrease the number of pendings for Nov? Part of it could be Caterpillar's forecast for a slight pull back in 2013 and not moving people around as much as in 2012.

Days on Market year to date showed a decrease of 5.8%. That's good. Homes are selling faster. For Nov 2012 it showed a decrease in Days on Market of 2.2% compared to the prior Nov. Still sounds good except the 2.2% decrease was actually an increase compared to all prior months going back to July 2012. This shows perhaps a slowing of the market for days on market and I believe a point where things will stay the same...not sell faster, but not sell slower..but possibly slightly lower.

Average sales prices for Nov 2012 were up 7.7% compared to Nov 2011, and year to date they were up 6.4%. It's good...but not as good as 2010. Nov 2010 average selling price was $144K, whereas in 2012 it was $137K. Not a huge difference, but big enough to mention.

Listing price to sales price-across the board pretty much the same. Overall (new and existing homes) right about 88.8%.

What homes are seeing the biggest jump in pendings? New constructions (up 36.9%) vs. pre-owned homes (up 15.4%).

What price range saw the biggest jump in sales? $400-$500K up 55.4%, followed by $300K to $400K (up 25.4%), followed by $500K and up (up 25.1%), and $225K to $300K (up 24.1%)

Days on Market....homes above $500K saw the biggest increase (+19.8%)-however I would argue that they are existing homes above $500K and not new constructions. There has been a large, very large, increase in the number of presold new upper level homes being built in 2012 compared to 2009/2010/2011. Homes in this category saw an increase from 117 days to 140 days. Homes under $75K saw a decrease of 97 days down to 86 days.

Sold price compared to original list price...pre owned homes are at 89.8% and new constructions are at 98.2%, both up from the prior year.


CONCLUSION....we have an under supply of new homes in 2012, however it will start to correct itself in the form of new construction starts in the different subdivisions I mentioned at the top of the page. Existing homes, particularly those above $200K within the city of Peoria and Dist 150 will continue to have a difficult time competing with the new homes being built unless they are updated. We will see slightly more new homes being built in the higher prices ranges (above $450K) even though the market might show a need for a larger increase, if for no other reason than there are not very many exciting lots to build on in the new construction subdivisions. The remaining lots in some new subdivisions are just not that enticing...which might prove a bonus for existing homes in higher price ranges that sit on better lots. The new park being developed north of Wilhelm Road will continue to be a draw for the subdivisions around it (Wynncrest, Stonehenge, Copper Creek, Stonegate). Builders will have one of the better years than they have had in the last few. 

Subdivisions around $300K

My wife and I have moved 11 times in the past 17 years all around Peoria and Dunlap. We have lived in most of the Dunlap subdivisions, or at least have built in all of them at one time of another. Around $300K, some newer ones include Wynncrest, Stonehenge, Copper Creek, Trailview and Summer Ridge (not to be confused with Sommer Place), on the north side of town. Around the Shoppes at Grand Prairie there are Fieldstone and Sommer Place. In the town of Dunlap itself-there is Copperfield. For a complete listing of Dunlap subdivisions, click on www.dunlaphomes.com and it will take you to certain page on my website that talks about all of the subdivisions

Things for the kids...

Aside from the museums...if they have any special interests, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with. There is the Peoria River Plex park district facility on the riverside in Peoria-it's a huge indoor gym/pool/etc area. The East Peoria Festival of Lights ( http://www.cityofeastpeoria.com/festival-of-lights/ ) is a must see...it's a lot of fun. The Peoria zoo is an attraction as well. Just let me know their ages and interests and I'll see what else I can come up with. http://www.peoriaparks.org/ is the website for the Peoria Park District and they have a list of things to do. http://www.peoriachamber.org/ is the link for the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce. http://www.peoria.org/plan-your-visit/what-to-do/ is the link for the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and they have a calender of events for things going on as well.

Housing ...

I've got a few links you might find interesting http://www.paarealtors.com/members/news/statistics/MarketUpdates/201210/Dunlap.pdf will give you the sales data for homes in Dunlap year to date through Oct, as well as an Oct 2011 to Oct 2012 comparison http://www.paarealtors.com/members/news/statistics/MarketUpdates/201210/2012_October_Summary.pdf
this link will show how Dunlap compares to all of the other local communities. Here's a big link...it takes into account everything above for all of these communities and shows a lot of graphs, detail and demographic infohttp://www.paarealtors.com/members/news/statistics/monthlyindicators/2012/201210.pdf

Where to stay....

With kids...and to be close to shopping and dining...and Dunlap...I would suggest Wingate by Wyndham (309-589-0033..I think they have a pool), Candlewood Suites (309-691-1690), or Country Inn and Suites (309-589-0044). All three are located in the northwest side of town, around the new Shoppes at Grand Prairie Mall. If you are going to be downtown, I would suggest the new Embassy Suites...it's nice and new, close to the new Peoria River Front Museum, and the Caterpillar Museum (the kids can drive a virtual reality bulldozer and watch a movie in a massive mining truck). While in downtown, I would check out what is going on on Water Street. (Kellehers and Rizzi's are good restaurants/pubs, Martini's, Rhythm Kitchen.)

Things you might want to know if you are relocating to Peoria in December!

The equation for figuring out what a home should probably be taxed at is this: Take the purchase price (estimated) of the house, divide it by 3, and that gives you what it should be assessed at. Subtract 6,000 from that number if it is going to be owner occupied, and that gives you the true assessed value. Multiply that times the tax rate (use 8% to get close to what it is everywhere around here since it varies a little from place to place), and that would give you the worst case scenario for taxes. Some houses have not sold in a long time so the tax assessor may have their idea of fair market value off-in either direction, whereas a house that may have resold in the last few years was probably properly brought into line with the fair market value.

The website for the Peoria County Tax assessor is http://66.99.203.101/assessor/realasp1.asp and from this page you can pop in any address in Peoria County (which includes everything in Dunlap), and see what the most current taxes are (2011 is the most recent year for completed taxes). You can also see what it is assessed at to see if they are close to the asking price or far off it. It will also show the last sold price in the past 10 years or so. 

Having a little fall fun!

This was taken a few weeks back at Wildlife Prairie Park at the Xterra Trails Triathlon.

We need your input!

What would you like to see here? More info on specific subdivisions? Different communities? Things to do around town? Just let us know and we will be sure to get it added. This week we are currently updating the Dunlap Homes section of the site (which you can get to directly by clicking on www.dunlaphomes.com ) by adding additional pictures of the different neighborhoods and adding new details as well. You just point us in the direction of where you want us to go, and we'll start working on it!

A Very Special Request

A very special request for a very special person. I know this is mostly a real estate related forum, but if you happen to be in town Oct 20th there is a benefit for a friend of ours, Elizabeth Grant, that is struggling with cancer. Please take a moment to read more about the event itself at www.hopeskipandjump.com , or by clicking Hope, Skip and Jump or more importantly on her blog at www.deadmanskipping.com, or by clicking here . Elizabeth and her family were also featured on WMBD Fox 43 this past week and you can catch a link of that by clicking here. 

Getting muddy in Peoria!

Here is a picture of my son, Matt, and I this past Saturday as we were climbing out of the water (temp was 28 degrees at the time!) at the 2012 Mud Mayhem race held at Wildlife Prairie Park!

Looking for a fun place to take the kids in Central Illinois?

Check out www.upperlimits.com in Bloomington, Il for their rock climbing walls and silos (it is central Illinois after all). Here is a picture of one of our kids climbing! Lots of fun and no experience necessary.

Just where is the Dunlap School District boundary?

By far, this is the most confusing question for many people coming into the area, as well as many locals. Homes in the Dunlap School District can have a Dunlap address, a Peoria address, an Edwards address and even a few other options. Vice-versa, there are some homes with a Dunlap address that might very well be in the Chillicothe or Princeville school districts. One thing is certain...if a home is in the Dunlap School District now it will always be in the Dunlap School District. They might redistrict within the Dunlap schools-as far as which Dunlap school a home goes to-but this is kept to a very, very minimum amount of change, but it would never revert to a different school district other than Dunlap. We have three kids that go to all three levels of the school system, elementary, middle and high schools, and they have had a great experience at all of them. If you would like a map of the school boundary, just let us know and we would be happy to email you one.

Another interesting fact is that the majority of homes in the Dunlap school district actually lay within the city of Peoria boundaries. As the city boundaries have continued to grow north and south into other school districts and mailing zip codes, the school boundaries have not changed. Currently the city of Peoria reaches as far northward as the Augusta Estates subdivision, which is adjacent to Banner Elementary School along the northern reaches of Allen Road, and as far west as the Sommer Place and Water Stone Estates subdivisions, which both have an Edwards mailing address, just to the west of the Shoppes at Grand Prairie Mall. 

New phases opening in Dunlap area subdivisions

New phases are getting ready to open in Wyncrest Subdivision, Fields Crossing, Sommer Place and Copper Creek. Quite a few pre-sold higher end homes are being built in Waterstone, Attingham, Copperfield and Hunters Trail subdivisions. Still not as many spec homes in this higher range, but quite a few clients that haven't found what they are looking for in existing houses have decided to take the plunge and build from scratch. Wynncrest, Sommer Place, Copper Creek and Fields Crossing will still be supply the bulk of the spec home options, with the majority of homes being built under the $375K range.

Interesting sales data for the area...

Looking at the most recent sales data for the area it shows the following stats for the year to date up through the end of July. For the first 7 months of 2011 compared to the first 7 months of 2012...

-Dunlap saw an increase of 31% and a closer listing price to sales price ratio...currently 94.7%. 

-Peoria saw an increase of 14.9% and an average listing price to sales price ratio of 88.3%.

-Washington saw an increase of 37.5% and an average listing price to sales price ratio of 93.1%

-Germantown Hills saw an increase of 61% and a closer listing price to sales price ratio...currently 94%. 

-Metamora saw an increase of 0%-it was exactly even- and an average listing price to sales price ratio of 93%.

-Morton saw an increase of 29.4% and an average listing price to sales price ratio of 92.8%

For a complete list of all of the local communities just drop me a line or shoot me at email and I would be happy to send you a link. Looking at the July 2012 month compared to July 2011, we saw overall a drastic reduction in the days on market data, which reflects that homes sold much quicker this July than last July. 

The higher end market, homes typically above $450K, is still lacking in the new construction supply. Many homes are being built in the $225K to $400K range, and selling about as quick as they are getting finished. 

2012...Off to a great start in Central Illinois.

There is national news-which says that the number of foreclosures will go way up this year due to the recent settlement with the banks, and there is local news, which is optimistic about what we can expect with the market.  My prediction for 2012 leans a little more to the cautiously optimistic side. I think that we will see more of the positive signs from 2011 and around the same number of new construction permits being taken out, but not a spike in those numbers. In a buyers market, you don't see sellers moving locally or doing "move up" moves for the basic reason that their current home is probably going to take a hit if they purchased it within the last 10 years, or if it is an older house that has not been updated recently. The sale of higher end homes comes mostly from employees being relocated back to the area, and that appears to remain consistent.

January 2012 compared to the prior January of 2011, we saw in increase in closed sales of 9.9% throughout central Illinois. We saw a decrease of new homes coming on the market of 3.7 percent. The decrease in the inventory would back up my reasoning above-that people aren't going to move if they stand a greater chance of selling at a loss, even though this also means they might buy a great deal with crazy low interest rates. The number of homes pending from last Jan to this Jan was also up 15.1 %. That all bodes will for a recovering market. The average sale price also increase a little...3.6%, as did the listing price to sale price ratio. The overall inventory of available properties for sale is down a lot....from 2,878 properties in Jan 2011 to 2,367 properties in Jan 2012, for a 17.8% drop in available homes. The months supply of homes was also down drastically (16.9%) to a 6.7 month supply. What that means is that hypothetically, if no other homes were listed this year, at the current rate of sales, everything would be sold off in 6.7 months.

If you are in the market for a home, now is a great time to be looking seriously because if the numbers above continue at this pace it means that the market has turned a corner and is getting better. Of course this is a one month comparison to a single month last year. As we continue to get more data month to month it will be easier to see a pattern-both good and negative-if there is one.

If you would like to get a market update for sales and available homes for any particular city, price range, school district, house style, subdivision, etc, just shoot us an email indicating what kind of report you are interested in and we will set you up to get automatic updates on all of the data above!

Spoiler Alert...non real estate related post...

In keeping with my annual "This year is going to be different. I'm going to stick to my new years resolution to stay/get in shape!", I've decided to sign up for a few running races throughout the winter/spring. Mind you-I said "sign up for", not "I'm going to do this even if it kills me". It started with running a 3.1 mile Frosty 5K a few weeks ago in downtown Peoria. The event was complete with a totally ice covered landscape and the added challenge of beating Frosty the Snow Man-who seemed to be in about the same shape as myself. This past weekend was a 4 mile trail race through the woods of Marquette Heights, which is near Pekin. The temp outside at the time of the start was a balmy 17 degrees. I'm not one to brag about how well I did, but that 8 year old girl that was ahead of me for most of the race got to see my back with about half a mile to go. Next up-the Cactus Half Marathon in Sand Ridge State Park in March. It's called the Cactus race because the state park it is in is known for the sandy soil conditions and actual cactus that thrive there. They said it was like running on a beach. Ever try running on a beach? Tried it-yes. Accomplished it-no. From there-near the end of March is the first ever Peoria Heights Half Marathon. Why am I telling you this? Hopefully burning the bridges of retreat behind me, I will have a tougher time changing my mind and not going through with it. :) For anyone that is into running and wants to see what the central Illinois area has to offer, click on the Illinois Valley Striders website, www.ivs.org and click on "events". Or click here.

New Homes coming up Dunlap's Sommer Place

Sommer Place is kind of an enigma, wrapped inside of a mailing zip code puzzel. It is located about 1 mile from the Shoppes at Grand Prairie off of Koerner Road, and it is in the city of Peoria, however it is in the Edwards mailing zone...so it has an Edwards address. It is in the Dunlap School District however. Ok-got  it? Good. On to the new homes....

There are a few gems we have coming up that are not on the market yet, but one will be going on this week, another one near the end of the month, and another one that is available for showings now-but will not be listed.

The one that is getting listed this week is a spectacular house located at 6815 Basket Oak, which is near the park. It was built by Distinctive Designs and has over 3600 finished square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, outstanding landscaping in the front and rear yards. This home is loaded with upgrades such as lots of built-ins, granite tops, stainless steel GE appliances, whole house audio with mutiple zones, a large mudroom, finished lower level, a professional fire pit in the rear yard, the list goes on and one. It will be listed for around $435K.

The next house is going to be listed at $300,000 and will go on the end of the month but is available for showings by appointment only prior to then. It has a main floor masterbedroom with a spectacular two story great room, 3 bedrooms on the second level and an overlook area from the second level to the lower level. Great house, move in condition.

The 3rd house...will..you will just have to wait or give us a call and we can tell you a little more about it. :)