5 Reasons why the Market is Slower…
1. Increased Inventory
Much more houses are for sale right now than in recent years, meaning buyers have a lot more choices and negotiating room. But why are there so many houses for sale today? Because a lot of sellers waited to list their property because they wanted to catch the top of the market. They waited and waited and waited. Now that they see the market declining, they list their homes in an attempt to still sell at a high price before the market bottoms out. As a result, we have an overabundance of inventory, up approximately thirty-nine percent than at this time last year.
2. Increased Mortgage Rates
News and advertising tells us mortgage rates are at an all-time low, and that’s true in a historical context. But short-term, over the past three months, mortgage rates have been increasing. And every time the mortgage rates go up, even a quarter of a percent, a large number of potential buyers are disqualified from the marketplace. Additionally, a number of mortgage companies are going out of business, with American Home Mortgage company – the tenth largest in the country – as the latest to close their doors.
3. Increased Mortgage Restrictions
During the past few years, mortgage companies granted mortgages to just about anyone, including those who couldn’t or wouldn’t prove their income, those with no down payment and even those with very poor credit. But today, with foreclosures climbing steadily, almost all mortgage companies have re-enacted the tight lending restrictions that were common decades ago. A co-signer may not be enough, and credit scores need to be high. Each one of those factors and many more disqualify some people from buying, which in turn affect sellers.
4. Increased Vacancy Rates
During the real estate boom, many people and investors bought spec homes with the hopes of flipping the house for a big profit. Today, vacancy rates on these homes are up over fifty percent. Since most of these people don’t want to act as landlords, they have a strong desire to sell the home rather than rent it out. As a result, many are selling these vacant investment properties for rock bottom prices, grudgingly taking a loss. This greatly affects other sellers in the neighborhood, because when one home sells for a low price, it sets a precedent for the other sales to follow suit.
5. Increased Foreclosures
Statistics from First American Real Estate Solution show if one house forecloses in a neighborhood, the average house in that neighborhood loses five percent of its value. If eight percent of the houses in the neighborhood foreclose, the value in that neighborhood goes down twenty percent. No one can deny that bank-owned properties drive prices down. Unfortunately, the real estate and mortgage market is now bracing for the tsunami of foreclosures that is expected to hit.
Experts predict that there’s going to be a crash of foreclosures over the next two-and-a-half-years of more than two million homes. So if your clients get a flood of foreclosures in their neighborhood, it’s going to lower the home values drastically. Additionally, no neighborhood – no matter what the geographic location – is immune from the foreclosure fact.
Based on Kale Realty article
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