Dear Readers,
This newsletter comes to you out of an URGENT need to spread the word about what is happening in the real estate market right now. Some of you have bought and sold recently, and this information is less relevant, but we can’t stress enough how crucial the following is for anyone who is considering a move soon. READ ON for a juicy market update worthy of reality TV.
Minnesota, one of the last holdouts in the nation, is switching to a buyer’s market.
The shift started two+ years ago on the coasts and Texas. The upper midwest has been one of the longstanding holdouts (i.e. it’s been a seller’s market) along with parts of the east coast, due to the fact that we never soared to Icarus heights in the boom. We are now syncing up with the rest of the country, moving from 1-2 months of housing inventory (extreme seller’s market) to 4-5 months of inventory, which is a balanced buyers market.
So what exactly does this mean?
Higher days on market. More marketing efforts required to sell a listing. Price reductions. More cancellations in the last 3 months than in my entire real estate career (almost 17 years) combined.
In the last 90 days:
We’ve had to sell 2 listings FOUR times.
We’ve had to sell 2 listings THREE times.
We’ve had to sell a boat load of houses twice.
It’s driving sellers CRAZY.
Unless you have a very special home in a super high-demand area, or a very very low price, the days of bidding wars are soon over.
“Well! What other rosy info should I know?”
There’s so much to be said right now about the value of a good listing agent. We’re no longer in the days where you can just stick a house on the market and expect 12 offers. We have to work 3x harder now, and you should be 3x pickier with who you hire for the job of selling your home.
The flip side of this coin is that, if you’re upgrading, you’ll get a better deal on your upgrade house.
You sell in the market you buy in, and you buy in the market you sell in.
What does this mean for you?
Anyone looking to buy right now is in the best market of the last 10 years. Regardless of rates. We have ways of getting the interest rate down.
If you’re thinking about upgrading and expanding your real estate investment, now is a PHENOMENAL time to do that. You’ll do slightly better on your bigger transaction (the house you’re buying) and you’ll do slightly worse on your smaller transaction (the house you’re selling).
However, it’s a worse time to downsize right now. You’ll get hurt on your bigger footprint sale. People move when they have to move, of course, but it’s a great time to be a buyer, especially between now and the end of December when the shifting market impact is combining with annual seasonality.
Contact us immediately if anyone you know is thinking about buying/upgrading, because now is the time to be making offers.
