photo by: AdobeStock

An AdobeStock image shows models of homes.

It is beginning to look more likely that Lawrence home sales will rise in 2024, ending a streak of three consecutive years of declines.

Lawrence home sales had a strong showing in November, and are now up 3.3% for the year, according to figures released Tuesday by the Lawrence Board of Realtors. If that pace holds, it will be the first time since 2020 that Lawrence has posted an increase in the number of homes sold.

With just one month left to report in 2024, it is a reasonable bet that Lawrence will end the year with more home sales than a year ago. Through November, the Lawrence numbers are up by 27 sales compared to the same period a year ago. December home sales would have to plummet by about 60% in order for 2024’s totals to finish the year below 2023’s mark. That’s possible, but not likely. It has local real estate leaders feeling a bit better about the state of the home market.

“We do have a more stabilized housing market, although we have quite a way to go to get back to an inventory that can support 1,300 housing units that were sold back in 2020,” Jill Ballew, president of the Lawrence Board of Realtors, said in the group’s monthly report. “But, we are moving in the right direction.”

The point that Lawrence’s home sales market is still far from what it used to be, however, is also an important one. As Ballew alluded to, prior to the pandemic, Lawrence sold 1,339 homes in 2020. This year, Lawrence is likely to sell about 900 homes, with 838 in the books through November. In other words, home sales are off about 30% from pre-pandemic levels.

As the Journal-World has been reporting, single-family building activity in Lawrence has been slow since the pandemic. Lawrence built its fewest number of homes in at least 50 years in 2022 when just 79 building permits were issued for new single family homes. It was only the second time since at least 1956 that Lawrence builders started fewer than 100 homes in a year. The other time was in 2011, when 95 homes were built.

This year almost certainly will be the third, and is very likely to set a new record low. There have been just 52 single family building permits issued through November, according to a search of the city’s database for permits.

To put those numbers in perspective, Lawrence in the 1990s and 2000s posted 11 consecutive years of single family home construction of at least 300 new homes per year. While the slow down has accelerated post-pandemic, the numbers have been on a downward trend for more than a decade.

The slowdown has created a different type of home-buying market in Lawrence. In her monthly report, Ballew said that in 2020, sales of brand new homes comprised 12% of the market. Thus far in 2024, sales of newly-constructed homes make up just 6% of the market.

Here’s a look at other details from the November real estate report:

• Selling prices of homes are still increasing, but they are doing so at a much slower rate than the past few years. The median selling price of homes is up 3.3% in 2024, and now stands at $315,000. That 3% growth rate is significantly different than what the market produced during the three previous years. From 2020 to 2022, the median selling prices of Lawrence homes increased by more than 10% per year.

• There were 162 Lawrence homes on the market in November. That’s up from 145 in November 2023 and from 104 in November 2022. Lawrence real estate professionals say the number is still low for a healthy market. They would like to have on the market a number of homes that is equal to about five month’s worth of sales. That, they say, gives buyers a good selection to choose from, and creates a situation where neither the seller nor the buyer has a big advantage when negotiating price. In November, the number of homes on the market represented about 2 months worth of supply. But Lawrence’s supply of homes for sale is experiencing an upward trend, even though the number of new homes being built continues to be depressed. That means more existing homeowners are agreeing to put their homes on the market. Here’s a chart that shows a big-picture look at how dramatic the changes have been when it comes to available homes.

photo by: Lawrence Board of Realtors

This chart shows the number of homes on the Lawrence market during the last five years.

• The median number of days that a home sits on the market is 8, thus far in 2024. That’s up from 5 days at this point in 2023. Real estate professionals welcome the increasing number of days. That shows the market is becoming more balanced, although a median of 8 days is still indicative of a fast moving market that still favors sellers over buyers.

• The total value of homes sold in Lawrence through November is $288 million. That’s up from $274 million at this point in 2023 and down from $351 million in 2022.