Inventory is down, prices have gone up and our number of sold properties have gone down. The year over year median sold price went up 7.5% according to our DMAR Market Trends report!

The past few weeks I have been looking at houses to compare to listings I have coming on the market and what I continue to see are homes that were priced too high haven’t sold. Their prices aren’t dropping in those neighborhoods, the seller and their agent priced it too high from day one for the market. They were unrealistic.

If you have thought about selling….

NOW is a great time to sell. Your competition is overpriced listings. And we still have a great pool of buyers. Let’s get it priced right, do some amazing marketing and get it sold at top dollar so you can buy before we have another interest rate increase.

If you are thinking of buying…

It is still a great time. Most people who put their houses on the market in the winter aren’t testing the market to see if they can sell unless you see that house that has been on the market too long…they might not be really ready to sell. Remember, the houses priced right, sell.

Mortgage Rates are scheduled to increase 4 times in the next 6 months. This doesn’t kick buyers out, it changes their budget.

Last month I mentioned the prices of steel and lumber going up drastically (20%). Last week I talk to a developer and they are thinking that will continue and are planning accordingly. That means prices to our buyers will be going up on new construction.

Are we ever so slowly inching to an even (Buyer/Seller) market? We still have a long way to go, an even market in October would be to have about 16,000 properties on the market for sale. We had 8,539 in October and last year we had 6,312. If we only go up 2,000 units per year, it’s going to take 5 more years for an even market. I think the interest rates will help slow down our price increases, but I’m not sure how it will influence our inventory.