Figures from the five-county area served by the Traverse Area Association of Realtors show that home sales for this year are almost exactly on track with sales from three years ago, but behind both last year and 2016. You have to go back to 2012 to find a January that lags far behind 2018.

There were 154 home sales last month, compared with 171 in 2017, 186 in 2016 and 152 in 2015. There were 176 sales in 2014 and 2013 showed 159 homes sold. Go back six years to 2012, when the housing industry was just starting to recover from the recession, and there were 121 homes sold in the five-county area.

The total dollar volume for 2018 is also not much different from 2015: $37,787,326 this year vs. $37,661,339. In Grand Traverse County, there were 82 sales for $19,861,903, with a median price of $230,500 for January 2018. The 83 sales in January 2015 generated a volume of $19,677,389. The only large difference is in the median price, which was $188,350 in 2015.

The one area that demonstrates a still robust market is the number of days a property is for sale before selling. In January 2015, it averaged 183 days; in Antrim County, the number stood at 277. This year the average days on market (DOM) was 126; Antrim is down to 219. The other four counties were all 155 or less. Benzie showed the biggest drop, going from 241 DOM in 2015 to 109 in 2018. For comparison, in January 2013, homes were on the market an average of 232 days before selling; in Benzie, it was a whopping 323 days.