Real Estate Analysis and Commentary in Tulsa

It is hard to believe we are half way through the year 2023. The market has had some big changes over the past year, that's for sure. With the FED increasing interest rates over the past year, let's take a look at how that has effected the Tulsa MSA real estate market. July saw less homes on the market than 1 year ago which resulted in fewer pending listings. Closed listings were down 18% year over year, which is a result of fewer listings in earlier months as well. Primarily May and June of this year. 



Year to date, sales are down about 22.5% in the Tulsa MSA. Pending listings are down about 17%. New listings are down about 13%. We are starting to see the active inventory creep up slightly, about 1.5% over last year, which means homes are taking slightly longer to sell. Days on the market are up from 17 in 2022 to 31 in 20223. With the tight inventory, prices are still increasing despite the higher interest rates.

August is typically a statistically good month for closings, however, pending listings will most likely drop as the activity around August tends to be slightly slower than other months historically speaking. As we transition from summer to fall, look the market to pick back up in September and October then begin a slight slow down for the winter months.  

February 2023 sales trailed February 2022's pace. While increasing slightly over January 2023's number of pending sales. The total number of listings taken was almost identical over the same February 2022-2023 time period. Low inventory continues and as a result prices have been slowing increasing.  

What's this mean? Pending sales are normally a good indicator of what closed sales will look like over the next 2 months. Look for a stable to slowly increasing median sales price in the market over the next couple of months as we enter the busy summer selling season. 

While the news talks about rising interest rates and how they are affecting the market, the real story in my opinion is inventory levels. Why? Let's take a look, over the past 3 years we are currently sitting at the lowest levels. We have seen population growth and strong employment numbers for the area, thus we have demand. When you have low supply and high demand, prices go up. They may not be increasing as fast as when interest rates were extremely low, but the market's median price has continued to increase. (see bottom graph)