Market Update

San Miguel de Allende Market Update January 2022

San Miguel real estate continues to see a bit of a boom… at least in the volume of sales.  However, prices have not increased as they have in many other cities in the US and Canada.  The volume of real estate sales in 2021 surpassed the last peak of the market in mid-2018. 

MARKET ACTIVITY JANUARY 2022

Observations

• Although the average sales price of homes priced between $150,000 and $999,999 remains fairly steady at a little below $420,000, we continue to notice an increase in sales of higher-priced homes and 2021 broke all previous records of the number of homes sold over a million dollars.
• The average sales price only increased since the last peak of the market in 2018 at an annual percentage rate of a little less than 2% - not even keeping up with inflation.

What Will Push the Market Upward

• Commodity prices – Commodity prices of the things homes are built out of, cement, steel, and wood continue to be high – almost double compared to a year ago.  This means builders are paying a lot more money to build new homes and this will eventually drive prices higher.
• Smart money moving to hard assets – I commented in the past two market updates that as confidence in currencies falls and fears of inflation grow, governments, banks, money managers, equity funds, corporations, and wealthy individuals have been taking action to preserve their wealth by moving more into hard assets like real estate. As this trend continues, it will push prices up.
• Heavy covid restrictions versus minimal – Observing the US real estate market, there are contrasting sales data that is regional in nature.  The states that are more open and with little to no restrictions are seeing huge booms and for example, parts of Texas have seen their property values almost double in the past year or so.  However, other states that continue to have a large number of restrictions are not seeing the same real estate booms. In fact, many of them are seeing an exodus of residents. Although San Miguel is not as “open” as for example Florida, the covid restrictions here are minimal and this is attracting more people.  The president of Mexico mentions almost daily in his news conferences that Mexico will not shut down again.  As long as this trend continues it will make San Miguel a desirable destination.  
• Shrinking Inventory - At first glance, it appears that the inventory of homes is still fairly high in San Miguel de Allende and that we still have 19 months of inventory.  However, anyone who has been paying attention to the market can see that many of the better homes are being sold off quickly.  Until we are down to around twelve months’ inventory, prices will not increase drastically but it will support higher prices for the nicer homes.
• Inflation - The whole world is experiencing inflation and eventually, this will arrive in San Miguel real estate as well and it will drive prices higher.  Whether the value of the homes is really going up or whether it’s the devaluation of the dollar could be argued all day.  But I’ll follow the smart money who are putting their investments in hard assets.  

What Will Push the Market Down

• I don’t really see a lot of indicators that will push the market down, but of course there is always a list of things that could change quickly.

Things to Watch!

• The Stock Market – The importance of the stock market in this context isn’t a prediction of whether it will go up or down but rather the broad impact it has on most things financial, consumer confidence, and even real estate in San Miguel de Allende. I still see many money managers saying that there will be a long-overdue correction.  If so, the issue becomes on how deep or shallow.  The deeper the correction the more severely it will affect real estate and the more shallow the converse is true.  Also, the larger the correction the more domino effect it could have on other industries or markets and reverse some of the indicators above. 

What This Means to Buyers

It probably means that you should buy sooner rather than later.  The longer a buyer waits, the more the commodity prices are going to push prices upwards, the less selection you will have as inventory gets sold off, and the more people will be competing for the same properties. 

I’ll mention again this time the huge number of developments that are available on the outskirts of San Miguel and that are generally sold in pesos.  Buying in most of them mean that you will probably want a car, but so far the prices have not seen drastic increases and you can still get a lot of pesos for every dollar.

What This Means to Sellers

The decreasing inventory means that sellers have a better chance of selling their properties.  There is little that is pushing prices down and as more buyers are competing for the same properties it will support higher prices… or at least less negotiating regarding price.

Lilia Aguilar, a new agent who joined Realty San Miguel a year ago is now helping me with our Market Updates and you will hear more from her in 2022.  In addition to helping capture the sales data, she is also helping me analyze the trends as we see them developing.

Philip Hardcastle

Lilia Aguilar

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