Despite a continuing scarcity of homes for sale, real estate sales remained strong last month. March results in the five-county area (via Northern Great Lakes Realtors MLS data) show a total of 240 home sales. That compares favorably with the 217 for March 2020. The previous high for the month was in 2017, when 237 homes were sold. Of note is the fact that on March 23 last year, Governor Whitmer issued the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order, effectively halting most businesses. The impact on sales already underway in March was much less than on the following two months.
 
While Grand Traverse County and Kalkaska County both saw the number of sales decline slightly, the dollar volume for the former increased. Grand Traverse had 121 sales last month and 130 in March 2020, for totals of $40,754,070 and $36,222,056 respectively; the average sales prices were $336,810 (2021) and $278,631 (2020). In Kalkaska County, the 15 homes sold last month totaled $2,751,600, for an average of $183,440. In March 2020, those numbers were 17 units for $3,701,820, or an average of $217,754.
 
Two counties showed dramatic growth. On sales of 39 homes last month, Leelanau County sales topped out at $21,320,319, or an average of $546,674. The same period in 2020 came in at 29 sales for $11,493,185, an average of $396,316. Antrim County posted 35 sales last month, up from 26 in March 2020. Dollar volume also increased dramatically, to $18,093,800, boosting average sales more than $200,000. March 2021 averaged a sales price of $516,965, versus the March 2020 figures of $7,911,400 and an average of $304,284. All the numbers for March 2021 were boosted by a total of 14 homes sold priced $1,000,000 or over in the five-county area.
 
Totals for the five-county area in the first quarter showed an upswing in sales of waterfront homes, from 89 in 2020 to 103 this year, and in condo sales, up from 100 to 143. Other residential sales declined from 393 in the first quarter of 2020to 349 this year. However, the dollar volume increased in all three categories, totaling $210,666,022 for the first quarter of 2021 as compared with $163,397,361. The 595 total units sold bested last year’s previous record of 582.
 
Sales of vacant land for the first quarter easily eclipsed those for each of the last seven years. A total of 376 sales for January through March this year included 87 with water frontage and 289 without. Last year’s first quarter showed sales of 32 parcels of vacant waterfront and 126 non-waterfront, or a total of 158. The previous high was 2019, with 40 and 192 and a total of 232. Total sales volume for vacant land in the first quarter of 2020 was $13,109,799, and in 2019 it was $18,857,619. Those two together would still lag behind this year’s $46,065,210.