Where Have all the Buyers Gone? – by Graham Farran

Let’s Talk Real Estate – September 2019

Southern Oregon has had a great summer with beautiful weather, lots of sunshine, and only two days of thunder storms that produced lots of rain but no significant forest fires. This beautiful weather usually brings lots of “out-of-state” home buyers, but this summer, home sales are in a drought.

Home sales started out slowly this year with hopes of high summer sales quickly fading. As usual, not all home sales are in a slump. With interest rates dropping below 4%, we are seeing lots of first time home buyers taking the plunge. Sales in East Medford are holding their own and West Medford home sales are actually up from last year. The two areas that are down significantly are Ashland and Jacksonville, which have the highest median price homes in the county, the most retirees moving in, and the oldest average population. Below is a detailed look at year-to-date home sales in Jacksonville as of August 8 and how it compares to last year.

This is good news for buyers as Jacksonville now has more inventory than it has for a long while. For sellers, the question is when will the market return to normal? Could rapidly increasing home prices be contributing to slower sales? Are buyers opting to move to less expensive areas in the valley? Is fear of smoke keeping buyers from moving to the area? Is it fear of the Fed lowering interest rates in the midst of what seems like a growing economy (what do they know that we don’t know?) Is it fear from the fallout of tariffs, war with Iran, Brexit, global warming?

It’s really hard to come up with a logical reason why home sales have fallen-off this year. Nationwide, we have seen a slowdown, and maybe this is just part of that trend. Or, maybe analyzing swings in home sales is as hard as analyzing swings in the stock market. What is even more confusing is that Ashland and Jacksonville are influenced so heavily by retirees moving into the area and the number of retirees is on the increase, so where are they going? They still must be retiring—maybe they’re all just waiting for the fall colors and the grape/wine harvest to make their trip up to Southern Oregon to buy.