“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain
My name is Jay Ferguson and I am one of the owners of the real estate division of Taylor Made Deep Creek Vacations & Sales. I am entering my 19th year in the real estate business here in Garrett County and at Deep Creek Lake. If you are interested, you can click here find out more about me personally and my background.
I will be writing a monthly blog post about our local real estate market, sharing & interpreting statistics and offering some insights into the market as a whole…as I see it. These are my personal thoughts and musings about the market in general and are not intended as anything more specific. And, to be clear, I am an optimistic, glass half-full kind of guy.
Lastly, every stat I reference is based on the official stats published by Bright MLS on or around the 15th of each month. My plan is to give you straightforward stats coupled with my analysis from the front lines and let you interpret what you read in your own way.
The month of May was a steroid shot for the Deep Creek Lake market. Even after being shutdown for the first half of the month, the second half of May was on fire. Vacation rentals are booked solid through the summer as demand ‘to get out the house’ finally gave way with the opening of our transient vacation rental homes.
You can see it in the numbers below – people are buying homes left and right. We continue to have inventory issues and thats good news for sellers, but buyers now have fewer homes to choose from. Many people that I spoke to about selling this summer have decided to keep their property for the time being and are spending their time here at the lake instead. That’s part of the inventory problem.
Also, with more and more people finding they can work remotely, they are choosing Garrett County – not only as a place to vacation, but as a place of residence. I am involved with 3 transactions right now where the buyers sold their primary home in the suburbs of Maryland or Virginia to purchase a full time residence here. That’s a new trend worth watching and I believe that you will continue to see similar scenarios play out as this COVID situation develops. Here are the stats for May:
The specifics:
- There were finally more new listings in May…59 new listings versus 42 in April. That is up 48.2% lower than last year and 40.5% higher than last month.
- Pending sales (homes that went under contract) were up 116.7%!! 65 total homes versus – 30 last month.
- Closed sales (homes that actually sold) were up 63.6% from last month, with a total of 36 sales county-wide. That’s still 4 fewer than the 5 year average.
- The total number of active listings is still 247 active listings – down 11 from last month but shockingly lower than the 5 year average (401) and last years number in May – 430 homes for sale.
- The average sold to original listing price (OLP) ratio is 89.8%, down from from 92.1% last month. The five year average is 90.4% and year to date is 92.0%.
- The median sold price was down to $242,000. This is down 14.9% from last months $284,500. The 5 year average is $259,070. (Jay’s note) *This number is always going to be off month to month. We don’t have a cookie cutter market, as ALL of Garrett County is factored into theses stats. Some months, big dollar lake homes sales skew this number higher and other months. Interested in more specific stats for YOUR property/neighborhood? Drop me an email jay@deepcreekvacations.com
- The average days on market (DOM) was 104, 23 days fewer than the 127 days last month. This number has been consistently dropping and this might be the lowest I have seen in 15 years or so?
Questions about the market? Whether you are buying or selling, I can put my experience to work for you! Contact me anytime for a free market analysis of any property you may be interested in purchasing or selling!
Jay Ferguson
Co-Owner
Associate Broker
301-501-0420 – cell