Sales volumes are down and the market has stability right now. I’m sure you’ll hear a whole lot of different takes on the market stats. There are a lot of ways to write a headline right now that will get clicks. The strategy that I take for everyone connected to our team is to provide actionable details that can help you actually understand the market.

Sales volumes are down, what does that mean?

Sales volumes are down, what does this mean? Well, what it means is that there are people buying and selling homes. The people that are making a move right now are the ones that have a genuine need to move. People’s lives change and there will always be moves as a result. The volume decrease that we are seeing has to do with the discretionary buyers/sellers. Investors are mostly in a holding pattern right now waiting for rents to rise and gone are the people who were selling their homes because of the price someone else got on the street. Notice that some buyers have left the market (investors) and some sellers have left as well (price-based sellers) and this has actually created some balance.

The market has stability right now. Are you sure?

The market has stability right now, yes I’m sure of that. From March to July we saw month-to-month declines in the market as we came off of the February peak. This coincided with our historic rise in interest rates. While this was happening almost everybody stayed out of the real estate market. Well, something happened in mid-August that continued through all of September. People started to wrap their heads around the new pricing and interest rates. They realized that the majority of it was behind us and people that had a genuine need to buy or sell a home came back. They have come back in roughly equal numbers so you’ll see in the stats that we are in a balanced market for most areas and most housing types. This has also halted the month-on-month declines and homes are now holding their value at the current pricing levels.

Where do we go from here?

What can you expect going forward? Well, be prepared for 5 months of “clickbait” headlines in the media. The historic build-up of prices ran roughly from September – February. That means that even if prices stay stable, each month going forward, headline writers will be able to write a larger year-over-year decrease percentage because last year’s number will rise each month. Stick to paying attention to how we present the numbers, by housing type, and by month and you’ll be the most knowledgeable person in the room when the conversations inevitably move to real estate over the holiday season.

As always, if you have any questions about what would be the best plan for you our your family, we’re only a quick call, text, or email away.

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