It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting in amazement at the price of housing in my neighborhood and I’ll admit I was a bit giddy. Sure, I knew the party could end and kind of expected it would due to interest rates rising and other economic factors. Well, the party appears to be over.
For the last couple years, I’ve had some saved housing searches on my browser which lets me quickly and easily see what’s for sale around my area. Up until about 3-4 months ago, I’d most often see a “subject to inspection” statement on each listing. That just meant that someone had put an offer on the house. I was amazed at how quickly the houses would sell. In many cases, it was measured in hours and not days.
Fast forward a few months to today. I have seen the same houses sitting on the market for a couple months now. In one case, they started the house at $419k, then dropped it to $399k and now it’s down to $379k where it’s been for weeks. Granted, the house is smaller than mine, but only a few months ago, a house sold across the street for $440k.
I guess the party is over. Since I’ve been so vigilant to calculate the value of my house as the prices went up, I’m also going to apply the same strict process as the houses lower or flatten out.
The party sure is over. A 9.5% reduction and still no sale is no joke. Most sellers have no idea that the party is over and are hanging on to the idea of last year’s prices, refusing to sell for less. This is not unlike those who held tech stocks in 2000, refusing to sell any lower than last year’s prices. Eventually, most sold WAY below those levels.