October is here, and 2025 is heading into the home stretch. This is the time of year when things begin transitioning out of the fall market and into the down season. Here's a look at where things stand in the local real estate market.
So far, so good! Talk to any real estate agent in town and they'll admit things seem slow on the ground. But recent market stats don't exactly paint a picture of a slow market. While home sales did decline almost 8% in September year-over-year, home values rose almost 8% over September of 2024. Time on market actually declined 100% from 36 days in September of last year to just 18 days on average this year.
The number of homes listed last month was both a decline from August and from the same month last year. Which means inventory is still fairly tight overall, but there does appear to be some relaxing as months-of-supply is at a relative high of 1.7 months. For perspective, we've been hovering around only 1 month of housing supply for many years now. 1.7 months of supply is as close to 2 as we've come in recent memory. And once we get over 2 months of supply, we begin to discuss having a more "balanced" market instead of a seller's market.
All of the stats that follow are sourced from the Lawrence MLS. What follows is a look at some market numbers specifically within the city limits of Lawrence:
Month-over-Month
- September home sales decreased 41% from the previous month (59 homes sold)
- Average price decreased 4.2% in September vs. the previous month, down to 356.6K
- Average Days-on-Market was down 10% at 18 Days-on-Market
- 92 homes were listed in September, 6 more than listed in August
- List-Price-to-Sales-Price Ratio for the month was 97.9%
- Average Per-Square-Foot was 187/sq.ft., a 3.6% decrease MoM
Year-over-Year
- Home sales were down 7.8% in September '25 vs September '24, an decrease of 5 homes sold
- Average Price was up YoY 7.7%
- Average Days-on-Market was down 100% YoY
- The 92 homes listed last month was a 25% decrease YoY
YTD
- Homes Sales are up 13.5% YTD through September; an increase of 94 homes sold this year
- Average Price is up 4.5% this year
- Average DOM is up from 22 to 24 Days, a 9.1% increase
- 1,009 Homes have been listed so far this year; a decrease of 0.7% from last year
- Dollar Volume is up 18.7% YTD for a total of $290.2M
- Average Per-Square-Foot for the year is at $193/sq.ft., up from $188/sq.ft. in 2024
Active Properties
- There are 140 "Active" properties in Lawrence, a increase of 20.2% since my last update
- There are 67 properties currently listed as "Under Contract" which is a increase of 1.5% since my last update
- The average list price of homes currently Under Contract is $ 467,983
- Months-of-Supply: There is currently 1.7 months-of-supply in Lawrence
As is clear from the numbers, the year overall remains strong in both sales and an increase in average sale price. I even looked back at the numbers for the year's first half to see if there has been a drop in value since July 1st and what I found was somewhat surprising: Average home prices for the first half of the year were $10K less than the average for the year's 2nd half so far. Since July 1st, the average home price in the city of Lawrence is holding very strong at around $375,000.
But there is also a fairly large increase in the number of active listings at 140. Is this a sign that the year's last couple of months will end up being slower? Time will tell. As of this writing, we are a couple of weeks in to a Federal Government shutdown. It's hard to really pick apart what affect that has on the local housing market. But there does seem to be some hesitation and anxiety in some segments of the home buyer demographic. But as this year has shown, that anxiety may not translate to fewer sales and lower prices. The smart home buyer will look at the current circumstances as an opportunity!
Stay tuned to R+K Real Estate for great new content, updates, advice, opinions and more in 2025. We plan to continue our advance of transparency, consumer advocacy, and empowering our clients with alternate business models designed to provide high levels or real estate service with drastically reduced commissions!
-Ryan Desch, Broker/Owner R+K Real Estate Solutions
