So our NSDCC market is cooking….is the amount of inventory to blame?
One-third of 2017 is complete – let’s compare it to recent years:
New Listings Between January-April
| Year | ||
| 2013 | ||
| 2014 | ||
| 2015 | ||
| 2016 | ||
| 2017 |
Prices are at all-time highs, and FEWER people want to sell??
How can you explain it? What is different now?
Is it His Orangeness? The change in president is a notable difference between 2017 and the previous years, but there hasn’t been any specific orders directed at the real estate business, and mortgage rates have stayed about the same. He could be causing more people to hunker down, but you would think that people would be just as likely to flee!
Potential home sellers know by now what’s in store with Trump. Not much, if anything, will get done that impacts the real estate selling business.
So what is it? Why aren’t more people selling at these prices?
It’s because they have nowhere to go that is any better. The baby-boomers who own most of the coastal real estate have successfully bought one or more personal residences to get to this one, and it will do – it is their trophy property. Selling a rental property via a 1031 exchange just to avoid taxation isn’t worth the hassle – and how do you do any better than NSDCC?
There are approximately 300,000 people in our market, hopefully we will have at least 1,600 houses to sell during the first four months of every year.
It is the 10% to 20% on the fringe that make the difference.
Some years there are a few extra people who decide to list their house. In 2016 we had 7% more houses listed than the 5-year average. A surge like that can result in more sales, or cause buyers to wait-and-see – it depends on price.
Baby boomers are young enough that they can still manage to live in their long-time residences, but this really should be the peak of the low-inventory era. Don’t we have to see more boomer-owned properties coming to market as they shuffle off to the retirement home, or the Big McMansion in the sky?
Keep an eye on the fringe – the extra 10% to 20% surges in inventory is where we will see a notable change first! Until then, expect more of the same!
This is what I’m thinking about Trump…
Trump ALWAYS “overreaches” and pulls back a bit, to get what he wants. He’s a salesman. He’s a great one. That’s what they DO. Critics say he’s an idiot, or complicated, or some such. He’s a bright guy, but he’s NOT that complicated! His temperament is like every aggressive half-back I knew on my high school football team. I felt I understood him right away. I think a lot of men do, not as much the women. No fault of theirs. I’ve watched him since the eighties. He was a star in NYC. Everybody LOVED the guy! No matter what he did, they loved him. He was a letterman. Held in high esteem by his peers. Underestimate him, and you’re likely to get hosed. As we’ve seen repeatedly.
Repeatedly.
Anyway, I know that when you’re elected president, first thing, you get a “folder.” Put together by the former president, and others. That folder describes the real “state of the union.” Traditionally, so I’ve read, there hasn’t been one new president who has read their folder without saying, “holy SH*T!”
Trump now knows things we don’t know. I’m guessing that Obama’s long-term “qualitative easing” strategy curled Trump’s wig a bit, as well as probable long-term concessions made to the former Ottoman Empire.
Trump’s actions of “overreaching,” as well as his approach that’s focused on getting our economy off life support and running hard, probably reflects his reaction to “the folder.” So he’s getting pipelines laid, coal production up, hassling companies moving offshore, and holding off on squelching immigrants for the time being. Probably a pawn he’s letting go for a bit. Real money is ALWAYS tied to real production. Always. That’s what Trump’s going for, for good or bad.
Critics are yelling at Trump like a crazy old lady watching firemen trying to put out a house fire engulfing her old victorian mansion. “You put an axe through my antique stained-glass window, you monsters!” Just ignore ’em like the firemen would. The fricking house is on fire. Firemen didn’t start it. They’re just putting it out. They’re gonna be using an axe, and high pressure hoses. Sorry about the piano.
Anyhoo, related to real estate, when the economy gets cranking, real estate prices tend to follow. Ain’t no real estate bubble here, imo. A bubble implies bullish*t money behind it, and margin financed real estate buying has been generally closed off. Only deep pockets can play today, whether it’s american or international investors, and they ain’t nothing like your waitress at Denny’s buying her third property on another liar loan. RIETs buying property to develop will take their time just like banks took their time on repo’s. It makes them money. That’s good for sellers.
Trump is manually cranking this economy up the old fashioned way. Critics can call it primitive capitalism, and they’d be right, but Trump seems to be on a tight schedule, and only cares about “effective” right now. A good economy will have a good effect on the real estate business, as much as that will annoy some people. So, sellers with nice properties can be a little cocky this season, imo. Buyers will come in spurts. One day it’ll be quiet. The next you’ll have your perfect angel buyer.
So far, so good, imo–and I could be wrong. : )
ps watch for Trump’s “overreaching” pattern and see if I’m right.
Thanks for the long commentary. Very interesting. Could you please comment on what you mean by “Trump is manually cranking this economy up the old fashioned way.”?
Thanks!
Whittling down the EPA. Working to reboot the steel industry. Rebooting the coal industry. Easing up on excessive government entitlements to the “poor”. Fast-tracking pipelines and offshore oil derricks. Working to reestablish the the Glass-Steagall Act to get bankers away from stock trading, which will hopefully turn banks from being idiot speculators back into a bunch of boring, mean old men looking out for my money.