Quote:
Originally Posted by cral12
Any updates on what people are seeing as trends? (I'm guessing it remains a buyers market...)
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It's a buyer's market, but only if you're interested in buying crap. I've been looking for a new house for nearly 6 months now, and have been keeping an eye on things. Essentially, the market is full of garbage. The end of every month is marked by a flurry of expired listings in my inbox, but nothing replaces them. New listings have all but evaporated. It's only the crap houses being relisted over and over. They update the outside pictures, but you can still see the snow out the windows on the inside pictures.
Actual sales are rare, and are often for well under the list price. I've seen houses go for 100k under. I have a co-worker who bought a new place months ago and still hasn't managed to sell his old place. I have friends who did manage to sell their house early in the year, have a fist full of cash and a desire to buy, and instead have been renting for months unable to locate a new better place to purchase for their growing family.
I'm watching the prices constantly being reduced in my neighbourhood. I'm going to be lucky to break even on my house that I've been in for nearly a decade, if I ever get to the point where I need to sell. My agent's updates show a continually increasing average days on the market time month after month.
Opinion seems to be that a combination of poor economy and new mortgage rules are to blame. People have a hard time qualifying for starter homes now, and it's cascading upwards. No one can buy at the bottom now, which means the people looking to upgrade are stalled unable to sell, which stalls the price range they want to move in to, and so on.
So like I said, it's a buyers market, yet there's nothing to buy.