We are still in a red-hot seller’s market for waterfront real estate at Lake Martin.

What’s going on with sales at Lake Martin? For January 2018, 13 waterfront homes were sold – that is down from 18 sold in January 2017. But looking at the 5 year average it is an increase of 14%.

Just to let you know, I am getting my sales numbers from the Alabama Center for Real Estate – aka ACRE. I am proud to be a Contributor. ACRE rolls up all real estate data for the entire state. In our area, they get their numbers from the Lake Martin Area Association MLS, of which I am also a member. It is important to note that the numbers we are quoting here represent the entire lake. That is all agents – all brokerages – the entire waterfront market.

One interesting stat I saw on the ACRE report discussed the average price of a waterfront home sold on Lake Martin in January 2018. The average sales price in January 2018 was $477,000. In January 2017 the average sales price was $536,000. So does that mean that Lake Martin real estate prices are down 11%?

Remember looking at one month in our market can be very misleading because we are a large lake – about 900 miles of shoreline, but at the same time we’re a very small lake when it comes to homes sold. Don’t look at one month – especially January, and predict too much about the Lake Martin real estate market.

How about inventory? At the end of January this year there were 175 waterfront homes for sale. There were 210 waterfront homes for sale at the end of January 2017. So we were down about 16%. The five year average is 264 homes for sale. If we step back and review the trend – it is two to three years of decreasing inventory.

So which way is the wind blowing – are we trending up? Are we trending down? I’d say we’re still in a red-hot seller’s market. Homes that are priced right are getting lots of attention. Lots that are priced right are getting lots of attention.

I’d love to help you if you have any questions about the market. Feel free to give me a call or text me (334) 221-5862 or email me [email protected].

Note: I also published this article on ACRE – the Alabama Center for Real Estate.