OK, this time last year we were in an INSANE sellers market… houses being sold in hours, multiple offers at thousands over listing price, people waiving appraisal contingencies, lotteries for new builds. It was just nuts.
Then over the past few months, the market has cooled significantly. Record numbers of homes listed in the MLS. Homes on the market for weeks on end, lowball offers, open houses by the score, you name it. Everything indictes a shift into a buyers market.
But in just the last week, we here at the powerhouse team of ThompsonsRealty.com have noticed some changes. Subtle yes, and it’s only been happening for the past week, but here’s what we’ve seen that tells us more buyers may be coming into the market.
1) My lovely bride had some relocating clients over the weekend and she showed them 52 homes (yes, 52. They made an offer on home #51). In almost every home they saw other buyers looking as well. “So what, big deal” you may say. It is a big deal. Last month you couldn’t find a buyer, last weekend you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one.
2) We sold a home in Wittman in six days. Not some cheap POS home. a $550K home. The only reason it took six days instead of two was the seller was out of state.
3) While looking for the 53rd - 60th house for our relocators, we ran into several homes that had just received offers. That’s plural as in multiple offers.
Those three things may not seem like much, but put them all together and compare them to how things were just a couple of weeks ago and it tells us that times just might be a changing. We’ll need to see more of this for a longer period of time to know for sure. I’ll keep a close eye on the MLS stats for a change as well. But something’s happening here, what is is ain’t exactly clear. Yet. Stay tuned!
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you still see the the trend continuing with more buyers coming in? I am selling my
and one thing that frustrates is me are that sellers seem to be panicking and stampeding
towards the door by reducing their prices to such low levels.
Rommel -
Yes, it does appear that buyers are moving back into the market, but slowly. We are still in a buyer’s market and will be until the inventory of available homes begins to come down.
There are a lot of price reductions, but generally it’s from homes being priced to high too begin with.
Had a buyer look at a home listed at $599K. We comped it around $540K. That’s rediculously overpriced. Offered 530K, the sellers countered with $545 if we’d waive the appraisal contingency. So they just admitted that THEY don’t think it will appraise at $545K yet they list it at 599K??? That’s pure unadulterated greed and/or hope for an uneducated buyer/agent.
Thanks for your reply. What are the peak selling months in Arizona and what is the average days on market right now?
For Phoenix, typically March - August are roughly equivalent for sales, and significantly higher than Sept - Feb. Generally, across the US home sales are higher in the summer than the winter.
Average Days on Market is tough to say. It varies wildly by price, location and style. 60 days isn’t unusual, and in certain areas and price ranges, 2 or 3 times that wouldn’t surprise me. But there are still some hot areas where the right home moves very quickly. We just sold a new build $550K listing in Wittmann in six days. Someone in our office had a 165K listing that went in 1 day. Overpriced listings may never sell.
Homes *have* to be priced right to sell (and priced aggressively if a quick sale is desired/needed.)
There is a LOT of inventory out there. Some subdivisions have dozens of similar homes for sale at similar prices. It can take some time to turn this inventory over.
How is the market for the Hillcrest Arrowhead area in Glendale and the I17 Dynamite of Phoenix, NW Valley?
Update: I had 5 houses for sale and of these, one sold in six days, the other three sold
in 10-14 days. All of this happened in late April and Early May. I still have one that has been on the market for the past 21 days. It seems to be buyers coming back. The main difference now is that
they are asking for closing costs assistance and also asking for less than full price. You have
to balance the cost of holding on to the house for a long time versus selling it now at a lower
price point.
I priced the homes to be one of the lowest if not the lowest in the zipcode. Another thing that I did that turned
out to be a good decision was to get rid of my tenants. I offerd cash incentives and did what
was needed to get them out. It would have been almost impossible to sell these houses since
most of the buyers are homeowners instead of investors.
Congrats on the sales Rommel. We’ve seen the smae thing with trying to sell houses with existing tenants. It’s tough…
And you make a great point about balancing the cost of holding vs. selling now. We had a buyer that offered about 2K less than list. The seller didn’t even counter and their agent said they would only take a full price offer. 2 months (and 2 mortgage payments) later that house is still sitting empty and unsold… Seller’s need to be able to seperate their emotions and not get fixated on getting a specific price.
Do you sell your properties yourself, or do you use a real estate agent?
I am an out of town investor and that is why I sold them thru an agent. Even if I were local,I would have still sold thru an agent. I have one left in the 85085 zip code, it is the lowest per sq. ft in the and it is now day 35.
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