March 8, 2021

This isn’t going to help the housing supply: a 29 percent drop in new listings in February.

That decline — only 227 homes were put on the market in the city of Sioux Falls, compared with 321 the same time last year — resulted in just a 1.4-month supply of homes on the market. That’s a 61 percent year-over-year drop, according to the Realtor Association of the Sioux Empire.

“Buyer demand continued to be robust in February, leading to many multiple-offer situations as housing supply continues to remain severely constrained in most segments,” according to an analysis included with the monthly report.

“This imbalance of prospective buyers to available homes for sale will continue to support multiple offers and, with it, higher home sales prices as we go into the typically busy spring market.”

Closed sales increased 6.5 percent year over year in February.

The average price of a house sold in Sioux Falls jumped 24 percent to $275,389.

The median price, $240,800, is a 18.5 percent increase.

Mortgage interest rates ticked a bit higher in February but remain below their levels of a year ago. Interest rates may rise a bit further in coming weeks, but according to Freddie Mac chief economist Sam Khater, “while there are multiple temporary factors driving up rates, the underlying economic fundamentals point to rates remaining in the low 3 percent range for the year.”

The average house in February spent 84 days on the market before selling, which is eight fewer days than one year ago.

The price range that tended to sell the quickest was the $200,000 to $250,000 range at 76 days; the price range that tended to sell the slowest was the $900,000 to $1 million range at 180 days.