Mary in Vegas writes about the current real estate market in her area. Like the Twin Cities, her area is experiencing a slow down. Minnesota REALTORS who have been in the business long enough realize this slow down is not a bubble bursting, but the market finally coming to its senses!
The real estate industry is known to cycle with highs and lows. Minnesota has been protected from the extreme ups and downs that are reflected on the coasts. Our market had been relatively stable until the "feeding frenzy" of the last 7 years. For the first time, Minnesotans experienced what the coasts have experienced frequently: very few houses on the market during a time when lots of buyers wanted to capture the low mortgage interest rates. Buyers frantically fought over houses paying prices well over list. Rental vacancies skyrocketed. Now that the inventory has dramatically increased and there are fewer buyers in the market, it feels like the market has skidded to a halt when in actuality, it's become more of a normal season!Mary in Vegas quotes Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research: "It's softer than it was, the way it should be, because we all knew it was going to slow down sooner or later. We got away from talking about cycles and started talking about bubbles. The cycle is on the downward slope of the peak, but we're going to be OK."
I like the thought that it's going to be OK. However, that's little consolation for the individual seller whose house is only one in the 4.5 months of inventory that is currently on the market! That means it would take 4.5 months for every house currently listed to sell IF no more listings came on the market. The pressure is on for sellers to make their houses showplaces and for agents to market like crazy!
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