Newer Posts | Older Posts |
The Second Best Way To Know If Your House Will REALLY Sell For THAT Much!?! |
|
Home values have increased QUITE a bit over the past few years. The median sales price this year is 36% higher than it was three years ago in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. That can leave a homeowner wondering... will my house REALLY sell for THAT much!? The best way to know if your house will sell for $____ is to put it on the market for sale and see what type of market response we have over the first few weeks. :-) The second best way to know if your house will sell for $____ is to see how quickly your neighbor's similar house sells and at what price. Very frequently, though not always, we can find a house that is relatively similar to your home that has sold in recent months that can provide concrete guidance on how you might price your home if you were to sell. If you are thinking about selling your home soon, let's start digging into the data now to see if it will REALLY sell for THAT much! ;-) | |
The Value Of The Smallest House In The Neighborhood |
|
How much should you be willing to pay for the smallest house in a neighborhood? Especially if it is a good bit smaller than all the other houses in the neighborhood? Let's imagine a neighborhood in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County where homes typically sell for $450K - $500K, with an occasional sale above $500K. All of these homes, however, are 3000 SF homes. There might be a 2800 SF homes that sells from time to time, but almost all are at, above, or well above 3000 SF. So -- when a 2300 SF home comes on the market in the neighborhood, how much should you be willing to pay? A seller might say $440K. After all, you have to pay $450K+ to buy any house in this amazing neighborhood, so even if my house is smaller than most, you'll need to pay pretty close to that floor of $450K. A buyer might say $400K. After all, the 2300 SF home is markedly smaller than just about every other home in the neighborhood, so the sales price should be quite a bit lower as well. If a 3000 SF home sells for $450K, I don't want to pay more than $400K for a 2300 SF home. I might say $420K. I think there is merit in both of the perspectives above, and a blending of those two concepts gets us close to what a buyer should be willing to pay. Keep in mind -- it is also possible that a buyer will come along who just LOVES the neighborhood and doesn't need much space at all. This buyer might just be willing to pay closer to that $440K - $450K price, especially if they are a cash buyer, or moving from a more expensive market, etc. | |
Which Comes First? Buying Your Next Home Or Selling Your Current Home? |
|
If you are getting ready to sell your home AND buy a home, it can sometimes be difficult to determine where to start... Do you start by finding a house you want to purchase? Or do you start by listing your home for sale? I would suggest that you start with whichever you anticipate will be the most difficult part of the two step process. If it will be difficult to sell your home (because of price, location, layout, features, age, etc.) and it will be at least slight easier to buy the next one (plenty of viable options are listed for sale) then you are likely best off starting with listing your home for sale. Work to get the more difficult half of the transition underway by getting your current home under contract, and then work on the easier side of the transition. If it will be more difficult to buy the next house (because of the specificity of your housing goals, or because of low inventory levels, etc.) and it will be at least slightly easier to sell your current home (because the property type, location or price are in high demand) then you are likely best off focusing first on finding the home to buy -- and then listing your home for sale. There are plenty of nuances we can discuss further to formulate a plan for attempting to simultaneously sell and buy -- but as a general rule of thumb, you'll be best off to start with the harder half of the transaction. | |
As Time On The Market Increases, Contingencies In Offers Often Increase |
|
Day 1 - If a buyer is interested enough to make on Day 1, and potentially be competing against other highly motivated buyers, there is a good chance they will waive some or many or all contingencies. They might not be proposing a home inspection, a radon test, or an appraisal contingency. Day 7 - If a listing is still available on Day 7, a buyer will likely tentatively feel comfortable proposing some contingencies (home inspection, radon test, appraisal, etc.) but perhaps not all of the above. Day 30 - If a listing is still available on Day 30, a buyer will likely feel comfortable proposing any and all contingencies, including a home inspection, radon test and an appraisal. Home Buyers -- Do you want to wait to make an offer to potentially be in a position to include contingencies that you'd prefer to have as a part of your purchase contract? Even knowing that waiting to make the offer might mean someone else buys the house before you make an offer? | |
Are Home Buyers Walking Away From Contracts In Harrisonburg? |
|
You may have read in recent news headlines that home buyers are cancelling their contracts to buy homes left and right. Here is one such news story... Homebuyers are backing out of more deals as high mortgage rates persist and recession fears linger (CNBC) This would cause plenty of people in our local area whether this is also happening locally. Are home buyers walking away from contracts in Harrisonburg? I'm going to say, anecdotally, a strong NO. That phenomenon does not seem to be happening in any significant way in the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County real estate market. Buyers generally seem to know what their mortgage interest rate is going to be before they make an offer (via a conversation with their lender) and are then locking in their interest rate once they are under contract. So, should sellers now wonder if their buyer will really make it to closing or if they might decide to back out of the deal? That does not seem to be a concern a buyer needs to have any more than at other times in the past 10+ years... at least in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. | |
The Strength Of The Local Housing Market Is Likely To Start Varying By Price Range, Location And More! |
|
For the past few years the market has been moving so quickly, with such an excess of buyers in nearly every price range, that just about every house would sell very quickly - regardless of the price range and location. But... as interest rates have been rising over the past six months, there seems to be some variation in how strong different segments of the market are, based on price range, location, property type and more. If you are planning to sell your home this fall we need to look carefully at homes in your particular neighborhood, price range, etc. to see how quickly they are selling... and to compare the prices for which they are selling now compared to three or six months ago. | |
Plenty Of Properties Likely Sold Above Appraised Value Over The Past Few Years But Fewer Are Likely To Do So Moving Forward |
|
Home buyer attitude towards appraisals has certainly shifted over the past few years! PRE-COVID... Most buyers would include appraisal contingencies in their offers to reserve the right to have a conversation with the seller about the sales price if the appraised value ended up being lower than the contract price. Most sellers were comfortable with these appraisal contingencies and found them to be reasonable. EARLY COVID... Some buyers started to leave appraisal contingencies out of their offers to compete in multiple offer scenarios. These offers were no longer contingent on the property appraising at or above the contract price. IN THE THICK OF COVID... The market just kept heating up over the past few years, during Covid, and eventually, home buyers almost always found themselves competing with multiple (or many, or multitudes) of other offers. Home buyers started adding in specific language to their offers agreeing to proceed with the purchase so long as the appraised value wasn't any lower than $____ below the sales price, or agreeing to proceed with the purchase regardless of the appraised value. These offers would significantly reduce (or eliminate) the possibility of an appraisal disrupting the home sale. Home buyers were willing to go this route to try to compete to secure a contract on a house... and home sellers were delighted! NOW... Some new listings are still having 5+ offers within a few days, but plenty are only having one or two offers. With fewer competing offers, and with a feeling that the market might be slowing a bit, more home buyers are revisiting the topic of whether to include an appraisal contingency. Some buyers are now including appraisal contingencies in their offers once again. Buyers should likely decide whether to include an appraisal contingency based on whether they are competing with other offers, and based on how much they like a particular property. Some sellers find the return of the appraisal contingency to be quite reasonable. Some sellers think it is a terrible thing, and are insistent that they should be able to sell their home for more than an appraised value. Sellers should likely decide whether to accept an appraisal contingency based on how much interest exists in their home, how many offers they have, how long it has been on the market, etc. A shift in the way that home buyers and sellers see appraisal contingencies is normal as we start to see some early signs that the local housing market might be slowing down from a sprint to a fast run. As with all things housing market related right now, the dynamics described above to not equally apply to all property types, price ranges and locations. :-) | |
Harrisonburg Housing Market Still Showing Strength Despite Some Signs Of Slowing |
|
Happy Thursday afternoon, friends! As any student or teacher will tell you, summer is almost over! 😢 I hope that you and your family had a wonderful summer and that you had at least one opportunity to sneak away... to the beach, the lake, a tropical island, a music festival, a rural AirBNB, a national forest, a campsite or a new city! One of my favorite spots to sneak away is Deep Creek Lake, MD... But getting back to business... The beautiful house on the cover of this month's market report is located at 3161 Henry Grant Hill in Preston Lake and you can find out more about this spacious home here. Each month I have a giveaway, of sorts, for readers of this market report. This month's giveaway requires a special sort of market report reader... one who also likes to run... a lot. I enjoy running and frequently participate in races put on by VA Momentum, and thus I was excited to hear they are putting on a half marathon this fall. So... this month, you can enter for a chance to win a free registration to the Harrisonburg Half Marathon, to be held on October 15, 2022! Find out more about the half marathon here. Enter to win the free race registration here. Email me and tell me I'm crazy for thinking you'd run a half marathon here. 😉 And now, after all that, let's dig in and see what is happening in our local housing market... As noted in my headline above, there are some signs that our local real estate market might be slowing down a bit. This very well may mean, though, that it slows down from going 90 MPH in a 60 MPH zone to going 75 MPH in a 60 MPH zone. The latest numbers, as shown above, indicate that... [1] July home sales were slower (140) than last July. We'll see this again on a graph in a moment. [2] Thus far this year we have seen 932 home sales, which is 4.6% more than last year. We had a record number of home sales last year, so a further increase this year is... record breaking. [3] The median sales price in July was 5% higher than last July. [4] When looking at the first seven months of the year, the median sales price has risen 11.7% in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. So... most of these indicators are quite positive, rosy, exuberant, except the slight slow down in July. This is seen a bit more clearly here... Above, you'll note that in June 2022 we had an astronomical 188 home sales... higher than any of the past three months of June. But, then, July. In July 2022 we only saw 140 home sales, which is less than any of the past three months of July. Some might point out that looking at a single month of housing data, in a small-ish housing market, can make you think something is happening, when nothing is happening. I agree that can happen. If we smash the two months together, we find that there have been 328 home sales this June and July... compared to 322 home sales last June and July. So... maybe things are "just fine" right now, and maybe things are starting to slow, slightly. As shown above, if things are starting to slow... they're only just starting to do so, and they're doing so verrrrry slowly. The 932 home sales seen thus far in 2022 is more than we have seen in the first seven months of any of the prior four years. Perhaps when we get another month or two into the year we will see things level out a bit in 2022? Slicing and dicing the data once more, this graph (above) measures (each month) the number of sales in a 12 month period as shown with an orange line, and the 12-month median sales price (measured each month) shown with the green line. As you can see at the end of the orange line, it's possible that the overall pace of home sales is slowing a bit... but then again, maybe not. We'll need to watch this for a few more months to know for sure. Speaking of the future, our most reliable indicator of future sales is... current contracts... This one surprised me a bit. We usually see around 150 to 160 contracts signed in any given month of July. But... not this July. There were only 114 contracts signed in July 2022, which is much lower than usual, and likely means we will see a lower than usual month of closed sales in August and/or September. This falls to the category of "things that make you say hmmmm...." and this will definitely be a trend we will need to continue to monitor. Somewhat fewer buyers signing contracts might mean that inventory levels would rise a bit... Indeed, we are starting to see inventory levels creep up a bit. There are now 163 homes for sale in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, which is a bit more than the 129 we saw at this time a year ago. It is important to note, though that these "slightly higher" inventory levels are really still VERY, VERY low. Many or most buyers in most price ranges and locations still have very few options of homes to buy right now. So, yes, inventory levels are creeping up a bit, but don't think that's necessarily giving buyers more choices... or giving buyers more leverage... at least not at this point. So... a few fewer sales... fewer contracts... slightly higher inventory levels... that probably means that homes aren't selling as quickly, right!? Well... Looking at the 12 months of home sales prior to July 2021 (a year ago) the median "days on market" for those sales was only five days. That metric has remained constant for 13 months now... and today, when looking backwards by a year, the median "days on market" is still just five days. Narrowing the focus even more, to just the 114 properties that went under contract in July 2022, we might expect to see a higher "days on market" -- and we do -- but only barely. The median days on market during July 2022 was... six days. So, homes are still going under contract very, very quickly! Finally, maybe this (below) is a contributing factor to the slight slow down over the past 30 to 45 days? A year ago, the mortgage interest rate was 2.8%. Six months ago it was 3.55%. During June and July it was as high as 5.81%, though it has started to decline now. It is quite possible that these higher mortgage rates have caused some buyers to not be able to buy any longer... or that it has at least partially dampened their enthusiasm. So, there you have it, friends. The housing market in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County is still showing great signs of strength with more sales than ever, at higher prices than ever. But... we might be seeing a slight slow down in home sales (from record high levels) and we might be seeing a slight increase in inventory levels (from record low levels). We'll have to give it a few more months to see how things continue to develop in the local market to know for sure. Until then... If selling a home is on your mind, let's talk sooner rather than later. Before you know it, we'll be halfway through fall and headed into winter. If you are planning to buy a home soon, let's start watching for new listings of interest and going to see them quickly when they hit the market. If I can be of any help with the above (selling, buying) please call/text me at 540-578-0102 or email me here so we can talk about working together to navigate your way through the ever changing Harrisonburg real estate market. | |
Anecdotally, A Smaller Percentage of Showings Seem To Be Resulting In Offers These Days |
|
I don't have any data to back this up, but it seems that a smaller percentage of showings are result in offers right now. A year ago, 20 showings might have resulted in 5 to 10 offers. Today, 20 showings seems to be resulting in 2 to 3 offers. It's hard to know what exactly is driving this change... [1] Home prices are certainly higher now than they were a year ago, and maybe it's harder for buyers who look at houses to get excited about paying today's prices as compared to the prices a year ago? Though, a year ago, prices seemed pretty high to most folks as well... [2] Mortgage interest rates are certainly higher now than they were a year ago, and maybe buyers are excited about Home X at Price Y but when they run the numbers and determine Mortgage Payment Z their excitement cools? Though, they could have known that before they decided to go see the house... [3] The housing market was on fire a year ago with no signs of cooling off, whereas now some markets are seeing sales and/or prices level off or decline slightly. So, maybe buyers are a touch more hesitant to act today as compared to a year ago because there is some small amount of doubt of whether home prices will continue to accelerate upwards over the next few years? Though, a year ago, there was some doubt about whether prices would keep accelerating upwards because they had been increasing so quickly up until that time... So, it's hard to say why, but a somewhat smaller portion of buyers who go to view homes seem to be deciding to make an offer on those homes right now. Does this matter to sellers? Not necessarily. [1] Homes are still selling very quickly. [2] Homes are still selling at prices that are very favorable to sellers. [3] Sellers are still often having more than one offer to consider, even if they don't have ten offers. So, changes are afoot, but they aren't necessarily changes that are affecting the pace of sales or sales prices in our local market. | |
Some Home Sellers Optimize For Speed, Convenience or Certainty Instead Of Price |
|
What are you optimizing for?
As a home seller, you are always optimizing for something. PRICE - Maybe you are willing to wait as long as it takes to get the price that you want for your house. Even if it takes months longer than you had hoped and even if it means that you aren't able to continue on with other life transitions that you had planned, at least you go the price you wanted. TIME - Maybe it's important to you that you wrap up your home sale (have the house under contract) within a few days or weeks. If so, you might be willing to price your home a bit lower to maximize the possibility that you accomplish your timing goals. CONVENIENCE - Maybe your strategy for when you list your home and your pricing strategy all revolve around making it a seamless transition to your next home. You're willing to be flexible on timing and on pricing so long as it lets you accomplish your goals of buying that perfect next home. CERTAINTY - Some sellers don't mind working their way through inspection contingencies, but some would opt for a slightly lower priced offer without an inspection if that meant they would have certainty that the sale would move forward. | |
Home Inspections Are Likely To Become A Thing Again, And They Should |
|
Over the past two years I have told countless home sellers something along the following lines as they have made final preparations to sell their home... "That recent listing over in that neighborhood had five offers within the first week and none of those buyers included home inspection contingencies." "That townhouse just went under contract after receiving eight offers, and only one of the eight buyers was asking to be able to conduct a home inspection." As such, many home sellers over the past two years have not had to work their way through home inspection contingencies and the negotiations that sometimes take place after those inspections. And... my point today... most home buyers over the past two years have not had the option of conducting a home inspection during their purchase process. As our local real estate market starts transitioning into a market that is not quite as piping hot of a market as it has been for the past two years, we will very likely start to see more offers with home inspection contingencies. This is great news for buyers! A home purchase is a major financial decision both in the near term and the long term. You are paying a large amount of money for a home in which to live... but that home may very well need some items repaired or need some system maintenance or replacement in the near future. A home inspection allows a buyer to more clearly understand potential home maintenance costs over time by learning more about the condition of the components and systems of the house. As a side note, I am much more of a fan of home inspections being used by buyers to learn about a house and to propose slightly different contract terms if major issues are discovered -- more so than home inspections being used by buyers to try to renegotiate the deal just because they can threaten to walk away from the deal based on the inspection contingency. Home sellers today should be prepared for offers that may include inspection contingencies. Home buyers today should consider including inspection contingencies if they are not competing with multiple other buyers to secure a contract on a hot new listing. | |
Last Call For Sellers Hoping To Sell To Buyers Hoping To Move Before School Starts |
|
I don't want to mention... the school year... but... it's coming, sooner than we realize. :-) With the start to school only 40-ish days away (depending the school system) we're now approaching the end of a golden window for buyers and sellers, when... [1] Buyers can buy and still get moved in before school starts. [2] Sellers can sell and still get a buyer moved in before school starts. So, if you're hoping to sell your home to someone who wants to be in your house by the time the school year starts... you should be getting your house on the market sometime in the next week or two. OK... everyone may now return to focusing on summer and pretending that the coming school year is way off in the far distant future. ;-) | |
Price Your Home Reasonably And You Will Receive Reasonable Offers |
|
Now more than ever, appropriate pricing is the key to a successful sale of your home. TOO HIGH... If an identical home sold a month ago for $325K... we shouldn't price your home at $335K or $340K or $350K. If you price your home too far above other recent sales, buyers may come to see your home... but they likely will not make an offer. TOO LOW... Likewise, and equally important, if an identical home sold a month ago for $325K... we shouldn't price your home at $300K or $305K or $310K. If we price your home too far below other recent sales, we will likely have an offer or two, but we can't necessarily count on enough offers with escalation clauses to increase your "too low" list price up to the "just right" market value. JUST RIGHT... If an identical home sold a month ago for $325K, we should likely consider a list price of $319K, $325K or $329K. Not too high. Not too low. Just right. Disclaimer: I'm oversimplifying here. :-) Rarely is there an "identical" house that sold in the past month to provide such a straight forward guidance on pricing. But, despite my oversimplification, hopefully the general sentiment of my guidance is clear enough. ;-) | |
How Quickly Will We Plan To Respond To An Offer On My House? |
|
When we receive an offer, how quickly will we plan to respond to that offer? Well, as is often the answer... it depends... We will certainly look at the acceptance deadline on that offer to see when the buyer hopes we will respond... but we might not always respond within that timeframe. Here are a few of the guidelines that will likely inform our response timeline... [1] If the offer is an extremely strong offer with very favorable terms, we will likely respond sooner rather than later. [2] If the offer is OK or good, but not great, we will likely wait until nearly the end of that response timeframe, or possibly even later. [3] If we already have feedback from every other buyer who has viewed the home and none of them plan to make an offer, we will likely respond sooner rather than later. [4] If there were a half dozen showings today and we're still waiting to hear back as to if those buyers will be making offers, we will likely wait a bit to respond to the offer. [5] If we have no other showings scheduled or requested, we will likely respond sooner rather than later. [6] If we have a dozen more showings scheduled and requests coming in beyond that, we will likely wait a bit to respond to the offer. So... as you can see, there isn't one set answer to how quickly we respond to any given offer. It will depend on the context for that offer as informed by the factors noted above, and other factors as well. | |
Price Reductions In A Fast Moving Housing Market |
|
A few years ago (maybe five) a home seller would often wait a month or two before giving serious thought to adjusting the asking price of their home if it was not yet under contract. But now, with a median "days on market" of just five days... home sellers are often concluding much more quickly that their asking price might need to be tweaked to inspire a buyer to make an offer. This faster pace of price reductions makes a lot of sense unless you have a super unique house or property that is only going to appeal to a very small pocket of buyers. In the current market, if you listed your home for $450K (for example) and didn't have any offers in the first two weeks, you may very well have priced it a bit higher than the market will bear. Perhaps it should have been priced at $425K instead. So... for as long as the market continues to move as quickly as it has been for the past few years, you can gather pricing feedback rather quickly once your house is on the market, and quickly adjust your pricing if you are not generating offers... or if you are not generating enough showings to make you confident that an offer will be forthcoming soon. | |
The Summer Housing Market Often Provides An Irregular Flow Of New Listings |
|
Starting and stopping and starting again. Home buyers hoping to buy a house in Harrisonburg or Rockingham County over the next month or two might become confused, or frustrated (or both) with the start and stop nature of the market during the summer months. There might be 300 homes listed for sale over the next two months... but there won't be five new listings per day for the next 60 days. Why, you might ask? Mostly because of seller's vacation plans. "I'm going to get the house ready to go on the market on ___. Oh, wait, we're going on vacation just before that, so let's push it back a few weeks." "I'm going to be ready to have the house photographed by ___. Oh, wait, then we leave on vacation immediately after that and I don't want to be out of town when the house is being shown." If you are a home buyer hoping to buy soon... don't get overly discouraged when there is a slow week or so of new listings... that will almost always be followed by a burst of new listings in the following few weeks. | |
How Should The Square Footage Of Your Home Be Measured? |
|
So -- are you trying to figure out the square footage of your home? Here are a few methods that are not certain to give you the correct answer....
So, how do you really measure square footage? It starts outside the home! You'll need to measure the exterior dimensions of each level of your home -- and then subtract any open areas, such as the open space above a foyer. This measurement method, as odd as it may be, is what is used by nearly every appraiser, as it is how "gross living area" is defined by Fannie Mae, HUD, FHA, ERC and ANSI. As such, it is important that you're measuring the square footage of your home in the same way that nearly every appraiser and Realtor would be measuring it, so that you're comparing apples to apples when comparing the size (SF) of your home to another home that has sold or that is on the market for sale. And here's why I consider it to be an odd way to measure square footage....
While the City and County measurements for tax assessment purposes are often very accurate, it is often a good idea to double check the square footage of your home when we're putting it on the market for sale. | |
If You Expected The Local Housing Market To Slow Down Drastically, This Probably Is Not What You Meant |
|
Two years ago the "median days on market" was 15 days in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. By a year ago, it had dropped to a median of six days on the market. Given that interest rates are rising, I thought perhaps we might be seeing this metric (how quickly homes are going under contract) start to rise in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. And I was right! Things are SLOWING DOWN! ;-) Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The graph above starts by looking at the median days on market over the past five months... the median was five days. Then, over just the most recent four months... still a median of five days. Next, over just the past three months, when interest rates started to rise... still a median of five days. Well what about over the past two months... still a median of five days. But, ah ha! I finally found it. The sign the market is really slowing down. The median days on market has increased 20% (!!!!) when we get to that last data point... the median days on market over the past month is... SIX days! :-) So, bottom line, did things go under contract more slowly over the past month than in previous months? Oh, yes, by one day. Is it a sign that the market is slowing? I suppose so. Barely. We'd need to see more of a change than what is described above and shown above to conclude that buyer enthusiasm is measurably declining. Stay tuned to see if that median days on market figure will scrape and claw it's way back up to SEVEN days sometime in the next few months. | |
Do You Own A Rental Property? Perhaps You Should Sell It? Pretty Please!? |
|
If you own a rental property in the City of Harrisonburg or in Rockingham County, perhaps a townhouse or duplex or small single-family home, are you potentially interested in selling it? "Please! Pretty Please!" -- said every owner occupant buyer in the market I understand, there are plenty of reasons why you would not want to do so. Your long-term strategy may be to continue to rent out that property for many years to come, and perhaps you would not want to tax liability that might arise from selling the property, but maybe you have been thinking about selling the property for the past few years.
But... if you have had any thought at all about perhaps selling such a property, now is an excellent time to do so. There is an extreme shortage of available lower-priced homes in the City and County and owner occupant buyers are pursuing such properties quickly and making very competitive offers when they do come on the market. If you would like to explore the possibility of selling a property that you have been renting out for the past few years, let’s talk about timing and logistics. You will likely be selling the property at a very favorable price with very favorable contract terms and you will be helping out the backlog of owner occupied buyers who are desperate to buy a home and settle down in the Harrisonburg area. | |
Reflecting On Large, Fast Changes In Mortgage Interest Rates |
|
For at least the past five years, I have remained convinced that mortgage interest rates would start rising... anytime. But month after month, year after year, interest rates did not rise... instead, they fell. But 2022 has been a bit different. If you had asked me anytime in the past five or ten years what would happen if mortgage interest rates increased from 3% to 5% in the course of just four months, I likely would have told you that the market would likely immediately and significantly slow down... not to a screeching halt... but certainly to a slower pace than before that enormous increase in mortgage interest rates. But, here we are, on the other side of rapidly increasing mortgage interest rates for the past four months, and the market seems to still be, doing pretty similar things to what it was doing before mortgage interest rates started rapidly climbing. Homes are still going under contract very quickly. Buyers are still often competing with multiple offers, including escalation clauses and waiving contingencies. Prices keep climbing. So, have the rising mortgage interest rates had any impact at all on our local housing market? I'd say yes. 1. Some would-be home buyers are no longer able to afford the homes they would like to buy. 2. I think some homes might be receiving two or three offers now instead of six or eight that they might have received before. 3. Some would-be sellers might not be selling after all as they see how their buying budget will be affected by higher mortgage interest rates. So, there have been changes in our local market as a result of these rapidly rising interest rates, they the higher rates have had a much narrower impact than I would have assumed in years gone by. One other point of trivia... the last time the average mortgage interest rate was 5.25% (or higher) was... way back in August 2009... almost 13 years ago! | |
Newer Posts | Older Posts |
Scott Rogers
Funkhouser Real
Estate Group
540-578-0102
scott@funkhousergroup.com
Licensed in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
Home Search
Housing Market Report
Harrisonburg Townhouses
Walk Through This Home
Investment Properties
Harrisonburg Foreclosures
Property Transfers
New Listings