Is Our Equity Back?

This is a favorite question in the wake of the hot sellers’ market. Before we give any broad data, let’s review all the variables that should play in the question for any individual homeowner:

When did you buy?
What’s your price segment within your town?
Did you make improvements or additions?

If you want to know if YOUR equity is back, please call/text/email for a current market value for your home.

If you want to know, for now, what has happened to average sale prices in your community, that’s what our chart of the month addresses. It’s still important to remember the chart tracks average sale prices in the towns we cover. It doesn’t claim to track individual home values.

Town-wide prices are always affected by who decides to sell in any year, and even more on the pace and intensity of home replacement and home improvement in each town. If 10% of the inventory is $1MM+ new homes, replacing the most modest homes in town, they will all be sold, and will impact the average price. Or for another example—if everyone in town adds a family room topped by a master suite to their 1950’s colonial and remodels the kitchen, the average sale price will be way up whether the market moves or not.

I haven’t been in every house in every town, and still I can testify to a lot of capital improvement since 2002.

That said, the chart is positive!