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Hey there, Jeb Smith, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, and I’m back with your September, 2019 real estate market report for Orange County and Huntington Beach. So we are now transitioning into the autumn market, which is essentially, we’re coming out of the end of summer, kids are going back to school, the family vacations are done, and generally during this time of the year, the market starts to slow a bit, right?
Because people are getting ready for the holidays that are coming up soon, and just in general, buyer demand kind of slows as does inventory in the market. And we’re starting to see that, a little bit. But things are still moving, right? So, homes that are priced correctly, fair market value, are still moving. But keep in mind, the average market time for our area is about 66 days on the market. Which means that homes aren’t necessarily selling the first weekend with multiple offers, even if they’re priced correctly.
Sometimes it’s taken a couple of weeks, even a couple of months for properties to go into escrow. And I feel like it has a lot to do with people just wanting to see what’s happening in the market. There’s a lot of uncertainty with regards to trade war with China. What’s going to happen with interest rates? Is there a housing bubble?
A lot of these factors play into people making decisions, and over the last couple of weeks to months, things have started to slow a little bit. And slow in the sense that they’re still selling, still selling for fair market value, but things aren’t going gangbusters like they were a couple of months ago, when a new property would come on the market and just have multiple offers at first weekend. Now keep in mind, there are certain price ranges.
You know, if you’re in our market and you’re priced under, say 700,000, things are still moving fairly quickly because there’s not a lot of property in that price point to start with. And as you move up into the luxury price points, things tend to slow as well.
But let’s take a minute. Are we in a real estate bubble? The easy answer is no. No, we’re not in a bubble at all. Properties that are priced correctly are still moving. Rates are at three year lows, I believe at the moment. So buyer demand is still pretty strong. And like I’ve said, things are selling, it’s just taking a little bit longer to get to that point, versus people making erratic decisions as soon as a property comes on the market. Because they’ve missed out on opportunities, or they just haven’t seen something that they’ve liked in that price point before.
So people were jumping to make decisions months ago, whereas now they’re just kind of sitting back, seeing if more properties are going to come on the market, and just trying to make informed decisions, which honestly is the best possible resolution to being a buyer, right?
You want to make the right decision, make sure you’re buying the right house, versus just buying a house to buy a house. So if you’re a seller, the number one thing … Because you’re not in the best time of the year to sell a property. This is not the best time of the year to sell it, to put a home on the market. That time of the year is the early spring market, when you want to get on the market.
Right now, if you’re going on the market, you want to be priced correctly, you want to look at fair market value, see what properties have sold for, maybe even price a little bit below the last property that’s listed, just to put yourself in the best possible position to sell quickly, and for top dollar.
If you’re a buyer, interest rates are really low. Chances are they’re not going to go up over the next couple of months. So you still have time. Find the right property. Don’t make decisions just because a property comes on the market. Find the correct property for you, your needs. And when you find it, make an offer. Have your agent look at the comparables, see what they’ve sold for, and give you an idea of what the price point is.
This isn’t a market to be overpaying for property. It is still a sellers market, so sellers are still making a lot of the choices with regards to who the escrow company is, who the title company is, and still have control with regards to the price. So prices aren’t … You can’t go into a seller just because they’ve been listed for 60 days and offer 5%, 10% less. That’s not the market we’re in. We’re still in a strong market. It’s just a little more balanced than it was, say, a year ago this time.
So as a buyer, make sure you’re finding the right property. You know, interest rates are really, really low. Now’s a good time to buy. And going forward, I think the market probably continues along this path for some time. generally speaking, as we move into our holiday market, if you will, things are going to slow a little bit, and we’re going to see that this year, right? Less properties are going to be listed for sale. People are going to pull properties off the market. Less properties go on the market during that time.
And interest rates are probably gonna stay the same, but buyer demand is probably gonna pull back a little bit too, just because people aren’t usually in the market during the holidays to buy property.
But I think the path continues. Home prices are going to be stable, they’re not going to drop by any large amount. Properties, at the same time, aren’t gonna go up by any large amount. So I think our market is in a good position. It’s stable, it’s moving forward. So if you’re a buyer, just keep in mind the things I said. And sellers, make sure you’re pricing right.
If you have additional questions about the market, feel free to reach out to me, would love the opportunity to help. And as always, I do appreciate you taking the time to watch. If you made it this far, please like the video, subscribe to my channel. It helps me out, helps me understand what people want to see with regards to videos. And again, thanks for watching. We’ll talk again soon. Bye-Bye.
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