Thirty Eight Years in the Business...and Still it Surprises Me

I had a new experience this weekend. My clients found a house that appealed to them, and we prepared to write an offer. We were to meet on Sunday, and offers were scheduled to be presented on Monday.
Yes, "offers." Almost every house for sale in our area is seeing multiple offers...even those in the million and up price range, as this one was. On Saturday night, the listing agent called me. The sellers had canceled the weekend open houses, and hinted that they wanted to move out of the retirement community where they had recently settled, and back into their long-time home.
I asked the listing agent what she thought that I should do, and she suggested that we still write the offer...just in case...which we did. But today, the MLS showed the listing as withdrawn. Back to square one.
Realtors from Sonoma to Carmel and San Francisco to Danville are noticing a surprising trend –a critical shortage of homes for sale. At the entry level, and in many mid-price level markets, we have plenty of people willing to buy, just not enough homes to go around. My how things have changed in the past year! To quote one of our managers, the new lament among local Realtors is, "so many buyers, so few listings.”
What’s happening? First-time buyers are rushing to take advantage of the federal tax credit before it expires this spring. Unfortunately, we aren’t seeing a commensurate number of sellers bringing homes to the market to capitalize on this. There are inventory shortages throughout the Bay Area. Open homes are attracting a flood of serious buyers. The result is that attractive, well-priced homes in good neighborhoods are getting lots of interest and, in some cases, multiple offers.
So by and large, it’s pretty much a conversation about inventory when you talk about our Bay Area real estate market. Even the luxury market, while admittedly slower than lower price points, has inventories trending down. Accuracy in pricing and attention to detail in showing condition remains critical in the luxury markets, but sales activity is picking up and inventories are going down.