Existing home sales in the Peoria market were down more than 7% through the first two quarters of 2024, but closings in July increased slightly over last year.
Peoria Area Association of Realtors president Bill McCarthy says low inventory remains a concern, tempering optimism for a big spike in sales.
“We're starting to see it here, going into this next quarter, on a little bit of a rise, but we're only talking 10 or 20 homes difference,” McCarthy said. “Right now, if we were to do a search of the Peoria market, there's probably 600 homes for sale, give or take, and that's up from maybe 575 or something like that earlier in the year.”
PAAR’s monthly figures for July show 528 closings, up 1.9% from the same month last year. However, that boost only reduced the year-to-date dropoff to 5.8% – with 2,949 completed sales. New listings are down 2.7% compared to the first seven months of 2023.
McCarthy says while mortgage interest rates have dropped to the lowest level in more than a year, they still need more supply to boost sales.
“We were pushing seven (percent) earlier in the year, and now yesterday they were in the low sixes,” McCarthy said. “So that’s encouraging.
“Even though loan rates are coming down, that could help buyers jump into the market. But at the same time, if we have more buyers jump in the market, that means there's going to be fewer homes available to sell because they’re going to sell fast.”
The Peoria market shows a median sales price of $148,000 and an average price of $180,300 so far in 2024, marking increases of 5.7% and 3.2%, respectively.
“They’ve gone up a little bit, but Peoria is still a very, very affordable area,” McCarthy said.
Illinois Realtors reported year-over-year sales, inventory and median prices all rose in July. The statewide total of more than 13,000 closings on single-family homes and condominiums was up 6.2% from last July.
Available homes were up 6.3% and the median price of $308,000 represented an increase of 8.1%.
“The increased inventory offered more choices for buyers as sellers started returning to the marketplace,” Illinois Realtors president Matt Silver said in a news release. “The upswing in both sales and median prcies indicates that sellers have seen positive outcomes as well.”