For sure, I hear it every day – CNN, the local paper, all the major magazines, local news – everyone talks about how ‘bad the market is’, etc. What they don’t ever say, though, is the market only sucks if you’re SELLING! If you’re a buyer right now – it’s a regular hay-day out there!
You have twice as much inventory to choose from, sellers have to price competitively or be prepared to take a long time to sell, and builders are slashing prices on new and pre-construction just to put dinner on their tables at night. It’s a regular buyers-bonanza!
Here in Minnesota (for example), we currently have about 41,000 homes on the market right now. A balanced market is more like 20,000. We look at the state of the market by measuring its “absorption rate”, that is, the time in which it would take all current inventory to be sold through, if no new homes were listed and sales stayed on par, where they are right now. Here that rate is about 7.7 months currently. And people keep on listing their homes. That being the case, we’re looking at a strong buyers-market for the next year or two at least most likely. And if our normal cycle is around 6-8 years, that’s right on track with our historical norm. But, that sure wouldn’t give our news-casters anything to shout about, would it!?!
I can see it now… “Good evening. I’m Dana Smith with Channel 6 news. Our local real estate market is normal and stable. Also in the news, no one was killed or maimed today. Mike, back to you…” Poor Dana & Mike would have to learn new trade skills and work on their résumé ASAP!
