Why do I make more money in December than any other Month of the Year? and why do I expect this year to be even better.
Here’s why.
1. Most Realtors think this is a slow time and choose to take more time off. RESULT; less competition.
2. There are fewer Listings and fewer Buyers, but those who are active are serious. RESULT; more productive use of time.
But this year things are very different. There will still be fewer Agents working and fewer Buyers looking, BUT there will be many more Listings to choose from.
WHY? Because we will still have all the normal Sellers who are serious, PLUS a large number of REO Properties which are not affected by the holidays. Banks know that each day they own a property costs them a lot of money so they will be putting them on the market as soon as they can regardless of the time of year.
So why be a Buyer now? Because you will have less competition but more properties to choose from. (Not to mention the extended and improved Tax Credit Program).
At the low end of the Santa Clara and Alameda Counties single family home market ($300-$400k) I’ve got used to having to make multiple offers ror each Buyer before getting a deal
I’ve also noticed this creeping up to the $400-$450k market.
However, until last week there was no sign of the same thing happening at higher price levels in the more “up scale” neighborhoods.
Here’s what just happened just 10 days ago
Fri 9:30 I enter a nice new Cambrian listing for $665,000 and schedule for the following weeks Campbell/Cambrian Broker Tour.
Sat Open House has 35 groups of people through.
Sun Open House had 29 more.
By noon Monday I’d received 3 excellent offers and we had accepted a full price clean one.
Early afternoon I get a call from the organizer of the Brokers Tour telling me that the tour had been canceled as all the scheduled properties had sold over the weekend and I would have been the only property to tour. I was actually sitting at my keyboard to update to a Pending Status, so in fact there were no new listings left to tour.
Is this a onetime situation, or a harbinger of calmer waters coming fast?
Most successful Realtors know the truth of my Title (Paraphrased from ex Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill “All politics is local”).
Unfortunately many of our clients get most of their information from the talking heads and empty suits of the mass media whose purpose is to sell advertising, with LITTLE or NO REGARD to TRUTH or CONTEXT.
They are therefore led to believe that any house can be bought for at least 20% less than a year ago, anywhere it happens to be located.
Here are a couple of facts that might be thrown into the running conversations about “How’s the market”
Over the past 10 years the average home price has INCREASED by 6.2% Nationwide.
Over the past 20 years the average home price INCREASE has been 4.7% Nationwide.
Source www.ofheo.gov
These are way below the numbers for Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) where I live and work, and they are way above the numbers for Dallas Texas.
The Morale is “East San Jose is NOT Palo Alto. Sacramento County is NOT Santa Clara County, Southern California is NOT North California”. Florida statistics are not relevant to any other State.
ALL REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL
