2021 Market Recap

Happy New Year Northwoods Neighbors and Friends! 

Wow, what a year it has been for real estate. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any crazier, 2021 came and showed us a real estate market unlike anything we had seen before. It came with great successes, many defeats, several lessons learned and a bit of insight into what 2022 might have to offer. Spoiler alert! We believe 2022 will be just as intense!

At the beginning of 2021, inventory was already low. The first two quarters of 2021 showed skyrocketing numbers of closed property sales, but very low numbers for new listings throughout the year significantly shifted the data by the end of the year. We ended 2021 with 1,657 closed single family homes* (-10.19% YTD) and 1,052 vacant land sales (+44.31%) in Oneida and Vilas counties. While vacant lot sales stayed in the positive YTD, it is important to remember that those numbers were almost +300% at the end of the first quarter and +150% at the end of the second quarter, showing the effects of a slow listing year.

On January 1, 2022, there were 477 single family homes for sale (-39.88%YTD) and 624 vacant lots for sale (-30.47%) between Oneida and Vilas counties. The only category where we saw an increase of new listings in 2021 was off-water vacant land at +8% YTD. Not surprisingly, available waterfront properties are lower than we have seen in years, with single family home inventory down 30.08% YTD and vacant land down 52.63%YTD. WE NEED INVENTORY!!

There are still a ton of eager buyers looking for their Northwoods slice of heaven, but our prediction is that it is going to take a while for inventory to catch up to this competitive buyer activity. It could be a very wild year for property hunting! 

We wish everyone a bright and happy 2022 filled with lots of lake time! Cheers!