If the second verse is same as the first, 2025 home sales will be off to an eerily similar start to the past two years in western Nevada County.
January sales were right in alignment with what transpired the past two years, with 68 homes sold. According to Multiple Listing Service statistics, there were 78 homes sold in January 2024, while the year prior (2023) saw a total of 64 closed transactions.
There’s no question January sales are annually among the lowest, but the past three starts to a new year have been particularly underwhelming in comparison to recent history. Aside from the post-pandemic sales frenzy, which saw 115 homes sell in January 2022 and 102 homes in January 2021, the first month in each of the past five years has seen an average of 79 homes sold.
Prior to the 64 homes sold in January 2023 — and the 68 sold last month — the lowest number of January transactions was 63 in 2016.
Along with the seasonal factors of the first month of the year, western Nevada County’s housing market is also feeling the influence of high prices, high interest rates and high cost of insurance. Though more easily influenced by such a small number of transactions last month, the median price of a home sold in January — $512,750 — was the lowest since $469,500 was recorded in February 2023.
That price helped to bring down the price per square foot down to $294, a 6.3% reduction from December.
Pending sales popped up 2.3% over December with 88 transactions in process at the end of the month. Last January there were 98 pending sales in the works.
Meanwhile, the median days on market for homes sold last month was 64 days, which reflects a 56% increase over the 44 days on market a month ago. That’s also the longest median days on the market until receiving an accepted offer since 63 days were recorded in January 2023.
Although the 290 homes listed for sale in January is not historically high for western Nevada County, it was the most homes on the market to start the new year since 360 were listed in January 2020. At the same point year ago, there were 227 listings, which easily outpaced the 169 homes listed on average that same month during the sales frenzy over the prior three years.
Brian Hamilton is a Realtor (DRE #02149112) for the Betsy Hamilton Real Estate Team at RE/MAX Gold (DRE #01949144) in Grass Valley. Email him at br***@be***********.com or visit www.BetsyHamilton.com for more information.
