Inside The Mind Of Today’s Home Seller

Blog, Real Estate Tips, Selling
How real estate has changed in just a few months! For six years, real estate professionals have struggled to get buyers back into the market, now, suddenly, it’s the seller’s turn. Every forecaster says the worst is over and real estate markets will continue to heal and improve. Buyers’ markets are turning into seller’s markets this year, driven by inventories of homes for sale are at record lows. In fact, tight inventories are a problem. There are so few houses listed that in many markets sales falling short because there’s nothing to buy. Today the greatest challenge facing real estate is not foreclosures, subprime loans, access to financing, threats to the mortgage interest deduction or FSBOs. The greatest threat is inventory…we don’t have enough of it. From 2007 to 2012, potential sellers were held captive in their homes by low prices. Even though at that time about 30 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were underwater and could not move, about the same percentage of all homeowners, 31 percent said they’d be motivated to sell their home if prices would just rise by 5 percent. In other words, the combination of pent up demand plus a modest financial incentive would have jump started the housing markets. Now that they have experienced incremental increases in values, they are not large enough to motivate them to move or something else is going on. Moving isn’t just about money. Other factors are equally important or more important than values.