Business Times of Edmond, Oklahoma January 2020 - Page 16

Veteran realtor reflects on housing market
trends in Edmond Area
BY TOM FINK | PHOTOS PROVIDED BY PATRICK ARIE
A
s a tenured real estate
professional and the outgoing
president of the Edmond Board
of Realtors, Patrick D. Arie has long
had his finger on the proverbial pulse of
housing sales.
With years of practical experience, in
recent years, Arie has observed a “steady
increase” in the housing market in the
Edmond area, with little indication of it
changing in the near future.
“If you analyze growth by price point,
what you’ll see is that price points over
the past few years have been moving
up in and around Edmond because of
construction,” said Patrick Arie, broker
associate, Keller Williams Realt y Central
Oklahoma. “New construction pricing,
when considered by square foot, if you go
back to 2016, you might see somewhere
between $125 to $130 per foot, and now
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January 2020 | The Business Times
we’re closer to $150 (per foot), with even
some properties getting closer to $200
(per foot).”
Over the past four years, housing sales
in the Edmond area have grown to reflect
an increase in construction, with home
sale prices averaging $185,000 at the
beginning of 2016, and reaching above
$200,000 near the end of 2019.
“If you consider the market, again,
going back to 2016 and tracing those to
current times, you’ll see a ‘trend line’ that
rises at a fairly steady pace,” he said. “We
don’t generally have huge sways from year
to year that you might see in a market like
Miami or Las Vegas, and for us, that’s
fortunate, because it gives us a much
more stable market with comfortable,
steady growth.”
The growth and stable (housing)
market enjoyed by Edmond is especially
reassuring, Arie said, in that homes and
properties are more inclined to increase
in value.
“People aren’t coming into the area
who need to buy or build a house today
— immediately — and a year later, that
same house might be worth 20% less of
what it was before. Everything that goes
up at a rapid rate generally comes down
at a rapid rate,” he said. “We’re quite
fortunate to have a fairly predictable
marketplace here.”
Another area in which Edmond’s
steady housing market growth is reflected
is in the volume of available listings.
“As agents, part of our issue this year
is that we haven’t had as many houses
to sell,” he said. “This is partially due to
those who purchase a home are staying,
keeping their properties, but if you look
back at years when we had businesses