Trophy Point Realty Group | Savannah Georgia Real Estate

Local Market Statistics

The median home price in the Savannah Metro area is $305k, which is $13k below the all time high that was set in may of this year.

The days it took the median home to sell remained low at just under 30 days on market.  A $13k drop in home prices isn’t very statistically significant, so we’ll say that housing prices over the last few months have been holding steady across the greater Savannah metro market.

The chart to the left (or above if viewing on mobile) illustrates the continuing inventory problem we are experiencing.  The number of new listings (blue line) is far below numbers we would usually see, and months of inventory is consequently low at just over two months.  It is true that tons of buyers have left the market with rates over 7%, but just as many sellers are leaving the market – this is why prices are stable and overall inventory remains very low.

Monthly Savannah sub-market report

This month we’re going to dive in to the state of Savannah’s multifamily market.  Our data source will be the Savannah MLS, so this report will focus primarily on smaller multifamily sales, typically 2-4 unit buildings.  The main conclusion from this research is that multifamily properties have been hit harder by rising interest rates than single family residential has.  This makes sense to us because investors are typically much more sensitive to interest rates – few investors want to buy a property that will be cash flow negative.  Homeowners on the other hand are cash flow negative whether they are renting or buying, so buying a home is less about the monthly cash flow and more about control and building equity over the long haul.

The chart to the right (below) is a median sale price scatter plot with a dashed trendline.  

Notice what’s happened since rates started increasing 18 months ago – prices are all over the place month by month, but trending down overall.

The three charts below further illustrate weakness in Savannah’s small multifamily market.  Months of inventory is trending up and currently sits at 10 months, meaning it would take ten months for buyers to buy all the existing listings on the market if no new listings come on market.  For reference, a balanced market is six months – making this a buyer’s market in multifamily.  For more context, remember that the single family market is sitting at just over two months of inventory.  The close price to original price ratio is trending down and is currently around 90%, meaning sellers are taking a 10% haircut from their original asking price when closing sales.  Meanwhile the number of active listings is trending up – there are more sellers in the market than buyers.

Of course, the median sale price is still almost double what it was five years ago – we can’t forget that while we discuss recent weakness in this subset of the market.  Overall inventory is still about half of what it was.  Rents have gone up quite a bit and remain high.  Overall, this is still a healthy market for the would-be quadplex seller, just not as healthy as it would be if rates were still 3 or 4 percent.  Our advice?  If you’re an owner thinking about selling, it could possibly make sense to wait until rates go down a bit.  For a buyer, now is a good time to negotiate a better deal – you have the leverage.  Sooner or later, rates will go down.