Inventory levels are so low right now -- it must be hard for a home buyer, because they have so few choices, right? Not exactly...

1,213 homes sold in the first ten months of last year

1,384 homes sold in the first ten months of this year

So, buyers have actually had MORE options this year than last.

But... those options of what to buy have come on the market and often/usually gone under contract VERY quickly... thus, keeping inventory levels at any given time quite low!

As such, the flow of home buying decisions looks quite different now as compared to -- for example -- three years ago.

Once you decided to buy a home you might have ten or so houses you could go see that would generally fit your home buying criteria.  You could compare and contrast each of them, prioritize them, decide which one you might want to buy, make an offer, and if it didn't work out, pursue one of the other houses.

Once you decide to buy a home you likely won't find any houses on the market that will work for you.  We'll wait for a new listing to hit the market, go see it within a day or two and you'll need to make a decision very quickly about whether you want to make an offer on the house.  If not, someone else will buy it, and we'll be waiting on the next new listing of interest to hit the market, and we'll repeat the process again.

Before, you could view 10 houses and compare them and pick your favorite and pursue that house.

Now, you can consider 10 houses, but you only get to consider them one at a time... and if you don't decide to buy house #2 because you didn't realize how unexciting houses #3 through #10 were going to be, you can't go back and buy house #2 because it will already be under contract.

So, you are likely to have just as many options to buy houses right now -- but the flow of decision making is much different than it used to be!