Well, let’s see… in the Saturday Homes section this weekend, the Assist-2-Sell ad is so full of listings you can barely read the copy. We’re talking font size 4 and absolutely no leading. At least Help U Sell has a little white space between the microscopic lines. Barker Coleman sprang for three full page ads and gave away plasma TVs free with a weekend purchase. The open house classifeds spanned eight whole pages (I think that’s a record)… total number of Saturday Homes pages, eighty.
And the Sunday Homes? Eleven full page builder ads. Last I checked they were running at nine, and before I started counting, just a handful. So, I wonder when the builders plan to scale back their plans to carpet the Truckee Meadows with ticky-tacky little suburban American dream homes. Because they seem to keep motoring forward regardless of market changes.
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Connected to your fine post about the ever mounting number of new houses being churned out locally, I thought we might take a few snapshot looks at the resale market. All of the numbers here are for the “Search all Reno” and “Search all Sparks” segments on the MLS link on your website.
Let’s look at the $500K-$550K market. There are a total of 225 listings. There are 10 pendings (of all varities). A whopping 4.4% of the listings have a pending offer.
Let’s look a little more closely at this segment. At exactly $550,000 there are 13 listings. Not one has a pending offer.
At $525,000, there are 14 listings. 1 has a pending offer.
At $529,000, there are 12 listings. Not one pending.
Let’s look at the $700K-$750K segment. There are 75 listings. There are 6 pendings. A roaring 8% of the listings have a pending offer.
Let’s look at the condo market in the $350K and above segment. There are 86 listings. There are 5 pendings. A whopping 5.8% of listings with an offer.
Let’s look at a couple of neighborhoods. Somersett is one of my favorites. The number of listings is up to 89. There are 3 pendings. That comes in at a roaring 3.3% of listings with an offer.
How about Spanish Springs-West? Here there are 143 listings. 12 pendings. A grand 8.3% of listings have a pending offer.
Now add to these numbers the untold numbers of new houses that you post about. It is essentially impossible to get accurate info about how many new houses are for sale and will be coming for sale in the next few months. But of course it has to be hundreds.
Foreclosures.com indicates that there are 1,245 houses in Reno in foreclosure, preforeclosure and bankruptcy as of today.
So with pending offers running less than 10% of listings, interest rates rising, sales volume slowing, can anybody make the case to me (I will keep my mind open here) that prices are not going to drop?
I am just an Ignoramus, you know.
Another observant preson said it this way…
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Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
What puzzles me is the continuous stream of new listings that keep coming onto the market. Sure, some may be rehashed old offerings making a comeback with a new realtor or a new price, but in general, new material keeps coming on. Who are these people, and why are they trying to sell now? Employment is low… they can’t all be leaving the area, can they? Among my own clients, some are leaving due to job transfer, some are selling so that they can build a new house, some are selling to buy a builder new home, and one is done with the college housing issue and wants to move the money into vacation property elsewhere. A ton of homes are suddenly for sale in Carriage House, and the neighbor gossip is that everyone wants to cash in at the top. Somersett has had a significant uptick of homes for sale in the last month, especially amidst the Monterey Development, because word on the street is that they’re not enforcing their two year right to purchase option because, hey, they’re outta here. Is this just greed? But these are mere anecdotes. It would be nice if there was a checkbox in our local MLS for seller motivation… so that we could more accurately track intention of the marketplace.
I think you may have hit in on the head when you say people want to cash out at the top. The problem is, though, they missed the top. The top was at least a year ago. Most people get their info about the market from the media and the barbeque scuttlebut. The media played a big role in the run up of prices to unsustainable levels over the past 3-4 years by running all the stories about the riches to be made flipping properties and serving as the mouthpiece of the realtorindustry announcing on a monthly basis how much the median prices just went up again. The media has been slow to comment on the downturn, but in the past 5-6 weeks the national media has finally figured out that this could get ugly. The RGJ is still about 6-9 months behind what’s happening locally. So now the word is in the air that prices have stopped rising and people figure let’s sell at the top. You know, let’s sell our house for top dollar and then buy somebody else’s on the downturn. Uh-huh.
And, of course, let’s use as our pricing criteria what the neighbor across the street sold for in 2004 and add 10% to that. Uh-huh.