April...as we expected

April is the month where we expected to see the ‘hit’ to the market, and it delivered – but not as bad as expected - yet. We had $54.8MM versus $77.1MM in April 2019 – a 29% decline. Ashe and Avery were hardest hit with 40% and 53% declines respectively. Overall, year-to-date sales are still up 20% over last year. I don’t want to predict May’s numbers, but the shut down is taking its toll.

HOMES: The average price per square foot (ppsf) decreased to $162.50 from $186.50 in March – this is pretty much expected with what is going on, but still fairly strong. We were at $177.40 last April.

LOT SALES dropped a little with 69 sales compared to 77 last month. The average price per acre dropped down to $16,838 but that may be because of the small data set.

RAW LAND SALES is a category that did get hit. 419 acres sold compared to 890 acres in March. The price per acre also dropped to $4,487 from $5,417 in March.

HIGH-END RESORT LAND (HERL) still held out well with 13 sales for $1.8MM. This is a category I thought might get hit very hard, but it is good to see that there are still sales in this category.

COMMERCIAL had a weak showing except for the sale of the CVS building in Boone. This one sale represented $6.1MM of the $6.8MM total commercial sales.

Foreclosure/REO Sales are still low with only 1 foreclosure home sale. Inventory is still low –, especially under $300,000 anything. However, this will be something to watch in 6 or 7 months as the effects of the shut-down will hit the mortgage companies.