Real Estate & The Iowa State Fair - Update

A few weeks ago I wrote about a phenomenon that occurs most every year in the Central Iowa real estate market around the time of the Iowa State Fair. Looking back over the previous 8-years at three equal periods of time, the 11 days leading up to the Iowa State Fair, the 11 days during the fair, and the 11 days after the fair, the average number of accepted offers decreased 8% from the period pre-fair, and then increased 16% during the 11 days post-fair. In other words, if you consider the period before the fair as normal, then 8% of the buyers were preoccupied during the fair and didn’t have time to make an offer on a house, but as soon as the fair was over, those 8% got busy and wrote offers on houses along with normal number of buyers, which increased the number of accepted buyers by 16%.  

 

This average was disrupted in 2024. In addition to being lower than normal numbers of accepted offers during all three periods, the period pre-fair was very low, then increased during the fair, and then increased again post-fair. These results are not normal as you can see in the chart below, and I have no explanation why this occurred. I will continue to investigate why this happened and will report it to you if I find a reason, but please let me know if you have any ideas.