Do People Still Buy Single Family Homes in Bowie?
As we continue to manage these unprecedented times with social distances and cases of COVID-19 fluctuating up and down, the Bowie real estate market is largely unchanged. In this post, we examine the real estate data in the region in order to better understand if people still buy single family homes.
For this analysis, we compared the real estate data on a monthly basis in 2020 with the 5-year average for that month. This comparison will shed light on the performance of the current market compared to historical performance, taking into account both monthly and seasonal variations.
In Bowie, the new year has proven to be solid, with new listings for detached homes in January, February and March close to the 5-year average compared to the respective months in previous years. As COVID-19 cases started to increase in the United States at the end of March, the new listings began to decline and then fell dramatically to 54% of the 5-year average in April, before rebounding marginally to 69% in May.
Table 1. New Listings for Detached Homes in Bowie
| 2020 | 5 year month average | % Change | |
| January | 78 | 72 | 108% |
| February | 73 | 82 | 89% |
| March | 115 | 131 | 88% |
| April | 59 | 127 | 64% |
| May | 88 | 108 | 69% |
BOWIE'S NEW PENDINGS & CLOSED SALES:
New sales pending are the number of homes that have been contracted. Again, a similar pattern has been noticed, with the months of January and February beginning to be high and representing the 5-year average for those months. It fell dramatically to 62% in April, marginally to around 86% in May. As the new sales were closed for about 30 days, we can see solid figures for closed sales for January, February, March and April, followed by a decline to 62% in May. Although the figures for June 2020 are not yet available, we do expect a rise in closed sales.
Table 2: New Pendings for Detached Homes in Bowie
| 2020 Month | 5-Year Month Average | % Change | |
| January | 89 | 83 | 107% |
| February | 97 | 91 | 107% |
| March | 94 | 112 | 84% |
| April | 74 | 119 | 62% |
| May | 106 | 123 | 86% |
Table 3: Closed Sales for Detached Homes in Bowie
| 2020 Month | 5-Year Month Average | ||
| January | 72 | 63 | 114% |
| February | 54 | 59 | 92% |
| March | 82 | 77 | 106% |
| April | 67 | 77 | 87% |
| May | 74 | 99 | 75% |
BOWIE ACTIVE LISTINGS:
Active listings are available on the market. Historically, the summer months of June and July are the peak supply of homes on the market. The 5-year average of active listings for detached homes in May is 136 and in May 2020 there were 58 active listings, which is less than half of the 5-year average. The active listings of COVID-19 are slightly lower than the five-year average for the months of April and May. However, the number of active listings fell below the 5-year average in December 2019, which means that the number of listings went down long before home orders were placed into effect. The bottom line is that while there's a supply. The bottom line is that while the availability of active listings in Bethesda has decreased, Bethesda seems relatively unaffected by this metric.
| 2020 Month | 5-Year Month Average | ||
| January | 97 | 139 | 70% |
| February | 68 | 121 | 56% |
| March | 81 | 132 | 61% |
| April | 71 | 136 | 52% |
| May | 58 | 136 | 43% |
BOWIE MEDIAN SOLD PRICE & AVERAGE DAYS ON MARKET:
Lower household inventory promotes a very robust market for sellers, maintaining strong home prices and low days on the market. In 2020, the average selling price for detached homes peaked at 116% of the 5-year average. The median sales prices from January to May are still well above the 5-year average. When the June 2020 data becomes available, it will be very interesting to see whether this market cooling trend continues or whether the low inventory will continue to drive up prices.
Looking at the average days on the market, homes continued to sell as fast as the 5-year average, if not faster. Houses still fly off the market; average days on the market are consistently lower than the 5-year average, as can be seen by April (41% decrease). With a historic low household inventory and high buyer demand, there would be no reason to assume that this pattern would soon dissipate.
Table 5: Median Sold Price for Detached Homes in Bowie
| 2020 Month | 5-Year Month Average | ||
| January | $392,750 | $360,600 | 109% |
| February | $381,950 | $352,740 | 108% |
| March | $402,500 | $361,550 | 111% |
| April | $393,000 | $363,700 | 108% |
| May | $422,500 | $363,440 | 116% |
Table 6: Average Days on Market for Detached Homes in Bowie
| 2020 Month | 5-Year Month Average | ||
| January | 49 | 52 | 94% |
| February | 44 | 49 | 90% |
| March | 43 | 47 | 91% |
| April | 23 | 39 | 59% |
| May | 24 | 32 | 75% |
