BATON ROUGE - From renting to buying, the 2022 housing market is already proving to be another record-breaker just two months into the year.

Sales are up nearly nine percent compared to last year and at the highest since 2006.

"We're low in inventory right now," said Carolyn Webber, President of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors.

Webber has been selling real estate for years. However, the trends she has been seeing lately are a bit out of the ordinary.

"People decided they want to put their houses on the market in the spring," Webber said. "They think it's a better time. Right now any time is a better time to put your house on the market."

While inventory is low, there are still plenty of people looking to call Baton Rouge home.

"Current homebuyers have a real big challenge for the market," Webber said.

A big challenge, but not impossible. In fact, Webber was recently able to help two homebuyers through the process.

"With Carolyn it was awesome," said new homeowner Wayne Garafola.

Garafola and Ben Mach found themselves in an urgent situation and needed a home quickly.

"We had two houses on one street and we decided that it was time to get one house," Garafola said. "She sold both of them in a day and so we had to find a house real fast."

In the Greater Baton Rouge area sales increased more than eight percent so a house costing $200,000 last year could easily sell for $216,000 with not much time to negotiate.

"If you see something you like, get it now because it's gone the next hour," Garafola said.

"Because there's nothing on the market," Mach said. "There's very little out there."

Webber isn't sure when the market may change. She says the current climate isn't necessarily a result of the pandemic.

"I really can't say," Webber said. "We sold houses during the pandemic. Now, what people were looking for during the pandemic, it changed."

Now people are looking for houses with more open space and offices. However, they are hard to find in this current fast-paced market.