High-End Properties Are Selling Faster Than Last Year, But Competition is Heavy

Sales of Anne Arundel County luxury properties priced $1.5 million or more have risen dramatically this spring, with more total homes sold and homes selling more quickly than they did in spring 2015.

Owners seeking to sell such properties must have unique, feature-filled homes or be able to offer a great price, however. Otherwise, heavy competition in the county’s luxury home market will easily thwart their efforts to sell.

Year-to-date luxury home sales figures published by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS) show that 17 Anne Arundel County luxury homes priced $1.5 million or more sold through May 17 – an increase of 41 percent over the same period last year.

Moreover, these homes sold 20 percent more quickly, on average, than they did last spring. The average number of days on market for the luxury properties sold this year is 161 days, as opposed to 202 days for homes during the same period in spring 2015.

Anne Arundel County’s luxury home sellers should do all they can to sell their homes in the first six months they are on the market. After 180 days, MRIS figures show, the chances of finding a buyer for such homes become very remote.

For example, on May 17 there were 109 Anne Arundel County homes for sale priced $1.5 million or more. Of those properties, thirty-eight had been on the market for nine months or more, and twenty-four had been on the market for a year or more.

In contrast, of the 17 Anne Arundel County $1.5+ million properties sold this year, all but two were on the market six months or less. (The other two properties were on market 452 days and 1,402 days, respectively.)

Through the same period in 2015, 12 luxury homes were sold. Five of those homes had been on the market six months or less.

The main hurdle facing the county’s luxury home sellers is the current overabundance of for-sale luxury inventory. At the current absorption rate of 3.75 sales a month, there is a 29-month supply of county homes priced $1.5 million or more.

As of May 17, there were 21 county properties priced $1.5 million or more that were under contract and headed for closing.

Jerry Kline is a Realtor with the Odenton, Maryland, office of Keller Williams Flagship of Maryland (1216 Annapolis Rd., Odenton, MD 21113.) For more information on the local real estate market, contact him at (443) 924-7418.