A Busy Start to the New Year!

A Busy Start to the New Year!

As we approach the end of January, we have seen a sharp contrast to the real estate market compared to the end of last year when it was very quiet.

Already, we have several home purchases under contract, ranging in purchase prices from $1 million to several million dollars. The amount of discounts we have helped our buyers secure varies. On some properties, we negotiated several hundred thousand dollars below list price (and included the seller’s furniture as well!). In other cases, we were in multiple offer situations and had to go above the list price to beat the competition.

The market is a mixed bag right now, depending on location and product. If you would like to know about any specific areas or want to try to take advantage of this buyer’s market, give us a shout.

Our Advice

Need an “inflation buster?” With high interest rates being the talk of the town lately, there’s lots of hesitation amongst buyers to purchase homes right now. True, over the last several months it has quickly shifted from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, but prices have not adjusted enough (translation: prices have not fallen enough). Depending on location, many sellers are having major difficulty trying to unload their homes to a willing buyer. However, there are a few savvy sellers (and saavy buyers) that have caught wind of a technique to make home ownership more affordable. These sellers are offering a Mortgage Buydown which is a technique to help reduce a buyer’s interest rates enough to make a major difference in the buyer’s monthly payment for the first few years only. This is often a better option than to reduce the purchase price because that discounted amount is typically spread across the life of the loan, perhaps 30 years. We have effectively used a mortgage buydown for our latest listing which just opened escrow yesterday! For more information, check out this Axios article by Emily Peck, or ask Dennis or Vivian!

Read Our January Newsletter Here