Home sales in southwest Michigan tanked 23% last month as prices remained out of reach for most.

“At the end of the peak selling season of 2024, house sales dropped 23 percent in September from August (255 vs. 330),” Southwestern Michigan Association of Realtors Executive Alan Jeffries said in a recent report.

“The number of houses sold in September decreased 2 percent from September 2023. Year-to-date, 2180 houses were sold in September 2024, less than 1 percent below the 2119 houses sold in September 2023,” he said.

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The September sales decline came as home prices have swelled from an average of $365,279 in September 2023 to $400,339 last month, the second highest average selling price this year, when it hit a high of $416,819 in May.

“The inventory of houses for sale continued to grow.  In September, it increased 20 percent compared to September 2023 (998 vs. 830),” Jeffries said. “This growth raised the supply level to 6.2-months, up from 6.0-months in August 2024. For comparison, in September 2010, there were 3574 houses for sale for a 17.3-months supply of houses for homebuyers.”

The 23% drop off in southwest Michigan compares to a 1% decline nationally, with numbers suggesting home prices remain too high for many first time homebuyers. Data from the National Association of Realtors notes first-time buyers accounted for 26% of sales in September, well below 32% in November 2023, and 30% of sales in September that went to all cash buyers, who are typically investors or second home buyers.

“Moderating home price increases are welcome news for home buyers,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said. “With wage growth now outpacing home price appreciation, housing affordability will improve.”

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While that may be the case in the U.S. generally, folks in Michigan are facing stronger headwinds than most.

Since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was reelected in 2022, Michigan’s per capita income has hit with what Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future Inc. said is “the lowest we’ve ever been,” dwindling to $61,144 in 2023, according to fresh data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Glazer warned the “enormous collapse” puts Michigan on a trajectory to become the third poorest state in the nation in a couple of decades in a report he co-authored with University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes earlier this year.

“There’s a real concern that voters have with their financial situation,” Grimes told Bridge Michigan. “I think (the worries are) even more profound than the data shows.”

Data from the Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey released last month shows that while median household income nationwide declined 1% from 2019 to 2023 to $77,719, in Michigan the inflation-adjusted measure was down 3% to $69,183, outpacing all but 14 states during Whitmer’s tenure.

The declining income has collided with other financial pressures in Whitmer’s Michigan, including back-to-back double-digit energy rate hikes, the most expensive auto insurance rates in the nation, crumbling roads costing motorists $17 billion a year, skyrocketing health insurance, and government spending that has jumped from $57 billion to $82.5 billion per year in just the last five years.

Whitmer and Democratic allies who control the Michigan Legislature have done little to address those issues, and instead have focused on funneling billions in taxpayer-funded incentives to multi-billion dollar corporations, funding incentives to attract “asylum seekers” and other immigrants, and repealing legislation like Michigan’s right to work law that draw business investments to the state.

The result is obvious in Michigan’s rising unemployment and student loan delinquencies, and recent reports detailing the plight of “the most financially distressed people in the country.”

Since Whitmer took office, about 200,000 more Michiganders can no longer afford basics including food, shelter, transportation, child care and other necessities, despite most working full time, a reality known as ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed.

“The cost of basics is increasing faster than the overall rate of inflation, as reported by the ALICE Essentials Index,” according to a 2024 United for ALICE report. “And it has gotten even harder for ALICE to keep up with bills than at the height of the pandemic.”

“In 2019, 1,508,284 households in Michigan were below the ALICE Threshold; by 2022, that number had changed to 1,671,196,” the report read.

That means the 38% of Michiganders struggling to survive when Whitmer became governor in 2019 is now at least 41%, though that figure is more than half in 11 counties and nearly 80% in some cities.