As 2023 began, Northern Virginia real estate agents were wondering if the pause in the market that happened in the last third of 2022 was going to continue. Interest rates had more than doubled during 2022, but going into 2023, they had eased a bit. Were they back in the threes or fours? No. They were in the low sevens and high sixes. Yet, just as consumers are prone to do, in light of the most recent highs, this felt like a relief. Indeed, it is the “new normal.”
Buyers have begun flooding the market, just as they did in 2020 and 2021. The same problem that existed then exists now. Where is all the inventory?
While buyers had their momentum paused in late 2022 as mortgage rates rose steeply, sellers seem to have hit their own pause button in 2023. It is certainly not for lack of buyers looking for homes. In fact, from Winchester to Stafford, and in my own home town of Bristow, I have represented buyers and sellers in multiple offer scenarios. In all cases, offers accepted were well above list and waived contingencies. The reality of the situation is this: as there is less and less to sell, buyers are left to duke it out on the homes available.
To sellers, this means another shot at unprecedented buyer demand and multiple offers. Not all houses are getting multiple offers, but those that do the listing preparation and price right, are the ones reaping the reward. Of course, in 2023, a handful of sellers are experiencing seller’s remorse and begging to be released from their contracts. Why? There are no homes for them to buy once they sell.
To buyers, this means shrugging off the national news of a real estate market crash and realizing that asking for closing cost help along with every conceivable contingency in a purchase offer is no longer going to be competitive. In fact, if the demand keeps up and lack of inventory continues to be a problem, we will likely see sight unseen offers again. Believe me, I wish this were not the case, but it seems we are trending back to the insanity of 2020 and 2021 in Northern Virginia and the surrounding market places.
Buying in 2023 is likely to feel like a rough and tumble sport. Knowing what you want and where you want it is essential. If you are tire kicking, this isn’t the market for you. Buyers that will do what it takes to succeed are the ones that know when they have found the home that meets their needs and want to be done before prices, or rates, go any higher.
Selling in 2023 is going to feel like a second shot at the insane seller’s market of recent years. Again, that is only for those that take the time to create buyer enthusiasm. Buyers aren’t likely to compete on listings that are over priced or under prepared for market.
What’s your move in 2023? No matter if you are buying or selling, get in touch with me and I will be happy to give you the real state of our local real estate market. My business is a full-time venture and has been for over eighteen years now. That means you will be represented by someone who is well versed in the ebb and flow of our market place. When the result matters, the agent you choose is the first critical decision. Let me know how I can be of assistance.
Listing a home for sale is no small task. Counseling sellers on prepartion projects, getting photos taken and creating a description of a home that draws in buyers is only a very skeletal part of the job. Understanding what your seller needs from the process is essential. Basic questions that I ask at a listing appointment include:
Are there any items that do not stay with the home?
Are there items that you want to leave with the home?
Where are you moving?
When you do need to move?
Do you need the funds from the sale of this home to buy your next home?
Is there a particular settlement date that works for your situation?
Are there any appliances that are not functioning that you don’t plan to fix?
These questions provide a framework for how the sales contract needs to work for my sellers. For instance, if a seller has gone under contract to purchase a home and needs to settle quickly, or needs a rent back, that is important information for a buyer and their agent to know.
One of the wonderful things about our MLS (Multiple Listing Service) is the ability to add documents for agents to see. In my listings, I love to provide what I call an Offer Info Sheet. There are many fields in our standard Residential Sale Contract that a buyer’s agent won’t know how to complete without looking through photos or cross referencing other sources. Owner names, conveyances, license numbers, where seller notices are going, etc. In the Offer Info Sheet, I provide information so that offers come in complete and have a shot at working. Preferred settlement date is always in there if needed.
In some cases, settlement date is critical. If a seller has already gone under contract to purchase another home on a specific date and needs the funds from the existing home sale to do that deal, the settlement date needed is critical information for those making offers. If you haven’t provided it in the MLS through remarks or some semblance of an Offer Info Sheet, when a buyer’s agent asks a specific question about the settlement date, you should be ready with the answer if you are committed to the best outcome for your sellers. Being caught off guard and stating your seller needs a quick settlement date AFTER you have received one or more offers is not the best way to get what your seller needs. Yet, these are things that happen in the practice of real estate that make me scratch my head.
My seller-clients never have to wonder if I am prepping buyer’s agents, or buyers, for what are mission critical goals. In the multiple offer situations of 2020 and 2021 that yielded offers in the double digits on many properties, my seller-clients were amazed to see that ninety-nine percent of offers met whatever settlement date or post settlement occupancy was requested. (There are always the one percent of buyer’s agents that never look at Offer Info Sheets, or the like provided by listing agents.) It is no less impressive when a seller has one offer that checks their boxes.
When selling a home must be within a specific time or have other critical components to work, don’t leave it to chance. Hire a listing agent that understands communication is the key to a successful, smooth transaction. In Gainesville, Bristow, Haymarket and points beyond, I am happy to meet and discuss how we can get it done.
Ever wonder what would happen if you were under contract to sell your home, but you changed your mind and wanted to stay put? Unfortunately, it does occasionally happen that sellers will be under contract with a buyer and have a change of heart. Does a seller have any outs in the Residential Sales Contract used in Northern Virginia? That’s a question every seller should ask of every listing agent they interview.
The contract used in our area, written by the Northern Virginia Association of REALTORS®, primarily focuses on the rights buyers have to void (get out without penalty) the deal. Unless a seller has a contract with the “Contingent on the Seller Purchasing Another Home” clause, sellers have no avenue to unilaterally void a contract. And even in the case of the home purchase contingency, if a seller is working with a listing agent that isn’t watching the calendar, the contingency dissolves at the deadline, obligating the seller to sell. A seller definitely wants to know when that home purchase deadline is up.
If a seller does NOT have a home purchase contingency in place and finds their desire to sell has changed, there is little more they can outside of pushing back on any requested home inspection repairs or price reductions due to low appraisal that their buyer requests. The ultimate hope here is that the buyer, in the absence of the seller’s willingness to do anything in the buyer’s favor, would void the contract. Obviously, that is a poor strategy and reliant on the buyer having significant repair requests that would trouble them immensely if not done, or the property having a significantly low appraisal that the buyer can not cover.
In my business, I have never had a seller-client that wanted to halt the sale of their home while under contract. Of course, my sellers are counseled on exactly what they are getting themselves into when accepting an offer on their home. My seller-clients also have in me, someone who can read non-verbal communication very well and will address it out right. If I get the vibe a seller is having second thoughts, I am going to ask about it.
In representing my buyer-clients I have come across situations where sellers are wanting out of their home sale. In particular was a buyer-client of mine who happened to be the seller-client of another agent. Every time we went house hunting, there was remorse that they should not be selling their home. It started before the home was even listed. Naturally, not being my clients on the home sale, all I could do was encourage them to talk to their listing agent.
As time went on and they were under contract, the seller’s remorse became stronger. By that point in time, their buyer was past all of their contingencies and ready to close. What does a seller do then? They either a) ask the buyer kindly to release them from the contract, b) hire an attorney and discuss their options, or c) suck it up and sell their home as much as they hate doing it. Again, all I could do was tell them to talk to their listing agent. They ended up sucking it up and selling their home, which made me very sad for them.
The most recent buyer-client I had that encountered a suddenly reluctant seller happened about ten days before closing. The seller, through their agent, begged to be released them from the contract. In mulling it over, my buyer decided (with other factors at play that had not been discovered) to let the sellers out. The sellers were so relieved that we were able to work out reimbursements for my buyer-client from them to cover out of pocket expeneses incurred for inspections, appraisal and survey.
The bottom line message to sellers here is that if you are listing your home, you should be ready and willing to sell under the terms agreed upon in the sales contract. You can not rely on buyer’s being empathetic and kind enough to let you out of the deal, especially in a low inventory market. Have a back up plan if you can’t find a home you want to purchase next. Start by hiring a listing agent that isn’t invested solely in getting you to closing, but whose business is relational. Agents like that…like me, are going to care more about what is in your best interest and not the pay day at the end of the deal.
“Was Anyone Ever Murdered or Did Anyone Die Here?”
With Halloween coming up and skeletons seemingly around every corner in October, it is a great time to address a rather macabre subject that ocassionally comes up with buyers as they narrow down their home selection. It happened just this afternoon that a buyer asked, “Was anyone ever murdered or did anyone die here?” Her friend, a former client of mine, told her that sellers didn’t have to tell you unless you asked. Let’s unpack fact from hearsay.
Just because you ask a seller this question does not mean they have to answer it. Sellers are required to disclose material defects to the property, but not events that transpired there. The Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act specifically states:
Purchasers should be aware that neither a seller nor a real estate licensee is obligated to disclose facts or occurrences which have no effect on the physical structure of the property, its physical environment, or the improvements located thereon, or the fact that the property was the site of a homicide, felony, or suicide.
The thought that someone may have died in a home they are contemplating purchasing is not the only thing that can cause a buyer anxiety. It was actually a closing just days before Halloween 2019 when sellers and I, as their Listing Agent, were accused of violating the Residential Property Disclosure Act. Buyers were doing their final walk through and noticed the neighboring lot was an old family cemetery. While the idea of living next to a cemetery may freak out some buyers, that’s just as much a non-disclosure for sellers. All a seller is held to is disclosing any material defects of which they are aware within the boundaries of their own property. Deaths, murders and suicides are not among them.
Navigating the Northern Virginia real estate market can be complicated on many levels. I would love to help you if you are looking for a place to call your own. Investing in yourself vs. a landlord is the first step to building wealth. Give me a call and let’s get started find you a house that YOU can haunt for years to come.
The fall real estate market in Northern Virginia is changing, just like leaves on our deciduous trees are undergoing a transformation. Many had become used to the frenzied pace of extreme buyer demand that stormed in during 2020 and lasted through 2021, that had sellers setting record high sales prices and collecting multiple offers. Those for whom that was a baseline for the real estate market are left feeling the market is a buyer’s market now that the frenzy has quieted down. That is not at all the case.
While buyers are enjoying the fact that they no longer have to make rushed decisions and waive every contingency, they are left feeling pinched by rising mortgage interest rates that have doubled since the start of 2022. Combined with housing prices that are still trending up, though not on as steep a trajectory, buyers are acting more deliberately. In a lot of cases, they are requesting seller subsidy to help buy down their mortgage interest rate. These factors that have slowed buyers down, has not changed the lack of housing supply to meet buyer demand. We are NOT in a buyer’s market. Believe it or not, the market still favors sellers.
Being in a seller’s market, however, does not mean multiple offers or always selling above list price. Real estate markets are defined by the absorption rate of available homes on the market. We could still have four months of inventory to sell and be considered in seller favored conditions. Our inventory in Northern Virginia, and particularly my primary service area of Bristow/Gainesville/Haymarket has not seen available inventory measured in months for a long time.
The current seller’s market is one where those looking to sell their homes will be advised to consider more than the most recent SOLD listings to figure out a suitable list price. Yes, sold listings are comparables. However, as we begin to build a bit of inventory, home sellers need to also look to a number of other types of listings.
COMING SOON AND ACTIVE
Looking at the available inventory there is to purchase will help a seller to figure out how to price competitively. Just because there are four comparable sold listings at $450,000 doesn’t mean that is the place you should price, or higher, as you would have in 2020 or 2021. Looking at active listings and those coming soon with similar features to your home is critical. If you have three similar competitors on the market priced at $450,000 that have been on the market for a few weeks and aren’t getting chosen, that suggests $450,000 is no longer a reasonable list price. If it were, those home would be under contract. So what competitors have been chosen?
UNDER CONTRACT
Competing listings that have gone under contract were chosen by the marketplace. Those list prices are much more valid, if all things are equal from a value proposition, than solds. Maybe the solds are at $450,000 and the three actives are at $450,000, just sitting there, but there are two under contract that were listed at $430,000. Do you think pricing at $450,000 or $430,000 is a better play? Clearly $450,000 isn’t working for the three sitting on the market.
WITHDRAWN, EXPIRED & CANCELED
As we build inventory, there are also clues in the listings that have been pulled from the market. If there is a withdrawn listing at $460,000 that was on the market for sixty days, that is a big hint that if you were just looking at sold listings, going higher is a no-no. The listings not chosen are as full of valuable information to choose your placement in the market as those active and under contract.
PRICE REDUCTIONS
Suddenly we are seeing price reductions in the market, where they were unheard of in the previous two years, with the exception of sellers who were really taking the frenzied buyer demand for granted and placing exorbitant list prices on their homes. There are sellers in every market that expect their inflated feelings of values to pan out on the market. It can be crushing when they don’t. Buying into an unfounded value as a list price can also be costly in a market undergoing a shift. Wasted time when a market is building inventory means wasted buyer opportunities and inviting more attractively priced competitors. Looking at who is lowering their prices and still lingering on the market is informational as well.
The buyer frenzy has subsided, but market conditions still favor sellers.
The real estate market is still favoring sellers, but that doesn’t mean sellers are seeing ten percent lift above their list prices or are getting buyers willing to waive contingencies. As the insane pace of the previous two years is slowing to a more measured pace, sellers are still likely to get under contract quickly and with reasonable terms when their homes are priced right, properly prepared and professionally marketed. Buyer demand is still high and inventory is still not enough to meet it.
Tread carefully when deciding how to present your home to the market of interested buyers. Overpricing is a real pitfall that will lock up sellers unable to grasp that the market dynamics are changing. Partnering with a full-time professional agent with experience beyond a seller’s market where the highest and best offer is chosen from a pile of offers is highly recommended. Skills that encompass all kinds of market conditions are not a given just because someone hold a real estate license. The soft skills to start the conversation that leads to getting an offer are absent in those that thought being a listing agent was putting a sign in the yard and collecting offers. Hire your listing agent wisely.
I have been at this since 2005. Making deals that put my sellers ahead of market conditions is what I do, no matter the current dynamics of the market. My listing process starts with detailed analysis of the market and listing preparation advice that will lift buyer enthusiasm. Combined with professional level marketing, sellers go under contract faster and walk away with more money than their competing listings. It would be a pleasure to help you do the same.
It is always an honor to help someone who has known me my entire life buy or sell a home. In the case of my buyers who just purchased a brand new home in Carter’s Mill in Haymarket, one of them was actually my fill-in babysitter when I was a kid. When his sister wasn’t able to fulfill the duties, it was up to him. The giant age difference as kids to teens means nothing in land of fifty plus years.
He and his wife reached out to me in February. His mother had moved in with them and was having a hard time with the stairs in their home. While he had planned to retire and sell his home a couple years ago, mom moving in with them put the new retirement home in a different place. Retiring at the beach wasn’t fair to mom, taking her away from all that was familiar and her daughter. So they started looking for a home in the active adult communities in Western Prince William County. It didn’t take but a couple home tours for them to identify that they really preferred a new home and the location of Carter’s Mill, a Del Webb/Pulte community off of John Marshall Highway.
They went under contract to purchase their Carter’s Mill home in early March. They fully expected to be moving in at the end of the year. Pulte got the job done quicker than anticipated and today, they closed on their brand new home before the end of September. Everything they need is on one level and they have a fully finished, walk out basement as well. Pulte built them a great composite deck and were still tweaking the details midday today to make sure my buyers were one hundred percent satisfied.
One thing that my buyers were so happy they did was to hire home inspectors for both a pre-drywall inspection and final inspection before closing. And the great thing I noticed was that Pulte was not put off by this at all. Their construction manager welcomed it, went over the home inspection report and corrected issues found. It was never a sore spot for the builder, but a chance for them to rise to the occasion and continue to make my buyers happy.
For anyone looking for fifty-five plus communities in Western Prince William County, I would definitely consider Carter’s Mill. If you want representation while buying, feel free to reach out.
Having been a full-time real estate agent in Northern Virginia since 2005, I have experienced more than the intense seller’s market of 2020-2022. Seller market conditions had been present in 2019, but the market was not as difficult to navigate as it became in 2020 and 2021 for buyers. Escalation clauses became very commonplace in the last two years and right now, they are still present in the market. Unfortunately, the market conditions, while still favoring sellers, is chilling out a bit. Competition is still present, but more limited and buyer actions more deliberate. What concerns me is the buyer and buyer agent perception of how escalation clauses actually work.
When you write an offer with an escalation clause, you are writing an offer that can speak in your absence. I have written about the appropriate use of escalation clauses before which focuses on situations that would call for them. This post is not to rehash that, but to talk about how shifting market conditions are chaning how sellers react to escalation clauses.
The risk to a buyer in writing an escalation clause is that they are showing the seller exactly how much they are willing to pay for a property. In the absence of other offers in hand, a seller is well within their rights to remove that escalation addendum and counter at a higher price, possibly to the max of the escalation addendum. Buyers and their agents tend to think that is not fair, but I am here to tell you that fair has nothing to do with it. When you have shown your upper limit, you need to be prepared for the consequences.
Just in the past month I have represented two sellers who had escalation clauses in offers. Neither had anything above list price when the offer with the escalation addendum arrived. One had multiple list price offers, the other no offers, but lots of traffic. Both buyers were stunned when the seller countered removing the escalation addendum and countering their offer. Cries of, “You can’t do that,” and “That’s not fair,” were made. Well, the seller can and who said life was fair. Mind you, in the ultimate act of fair negotiations, both sellers went midway between the max escalation and list price with their counters. Yet, the buyers were left feeling taken advantage of.
These buyers didn’t seem to understand, that in a market with not enough inventory, sellers still have the advantage. What sense does it make to say you would pay twenty thousand over list, but only if someone else was willing to pay a little less? Do you want the house? Do you want to lock down the deal before a better offer comes in? Especially on properties that you know will get other offers, it is a dangerous game to say no to a counter at a price you would pay otherwise. And if a buyer in this situation has not waived appraisal, there is no way they are going to be forced to pay above appraised value. From even a buyer’s agent perspective, it is hard to see rejecting a counter offer at a price a buyer would be willing to pay.
There is risk to a seller in removing an escalation addendum. Once a buyer’s offer is countered, the first offer that buyer made is no longer valid. It has been altered. This is very important for buyers to understand because their offer with a escalation, once countered by a seller, is not automatically going to best another within a certain range.
Understanding that bold statement above, let’s say Buyer A made an offer at list price, escalating above other offers in increments of two-thousand dollars to a max of twenty-thousand above list. Seller counters Buyer A removing escalation addendum with a sales price of ten-thousand above list price. What is wise for Buyer A to do? If Buyer A was worried that other offers may get higher than that since their original escalation was twenty-thousand above, they would be wise to take the counter. However, if Buyer A wants to counter the seller one escalation above list from their original offer at two-thousand above list, meanwhile Buyer B enters the scene at five thousand above list, Buyer B is now the highest offer. If the seller takes Buyer B, Buyer A will be kicking themselves that while they wasted time trying to get a few thousand lower, they could have locked in a deal still well below their max escalation.
When representing buyers I always make sure they understand the worst that could happen when including an escalation clause in their offer is that they get countered to their max escalation. And common sense says that if they were willing to pay that to begin with had other buyers been present with offers on the table, why wouldn’t they want it in a counter offer?
As far as I can tell from the listing side, buyers seem to think escalation addendums are a way of playing a real estate version of The Price is Right Showcase Showdown. They can best another buyer and be minimally out of pocket. Sellers are under no obligation to take the highest offer. In fact, sellers often times will take the buyer that appeared the most serious from the beginning, even if it costs them one-thousand dollars. An example would be Buyer A bringing in an offer at twenty-thousand above list with no escalation and Buyer B bringing in offer at list, escalating five-hundred above another to a max of twenty-thousand five-hundred above list. Buyer A swung for the fences with their offer. They didn’t need to know another buyer wanted it for just as much. That speaks volumes to a seller.
If you are serious about a home and you are worried enough about other buyers wanting it to include an escalation, try reframing a possible counter from a seller as a positive thing. You may just lose the house you wanted because your perception is that there are no other buyers interested. Better yet, write the max offer you are willing to make without an escalation and get sellers to act vs. waiting a day or two for an offer to escalate you. Buyers are still facing markets with not enough homes to go around.
Selling in a Seller’s Market is Not a Guarantee of Best Terms
As limited housing supply continues to meet unfettered buyer demand, more and more sellers have been overly confident in their place in the market. Believe it or not, not all homes sell in a seller’s market. They will if they are priced right and/or in good condition. Market forces are always at work, which means buyers still compare what is offered to what they have recently seen and what they expect to see in the near future.
It is not uncommon for a buyer to walk away from a perfectly pleasing, over priced home in a seller’s market because they fear it will get bid up above that list price. Preparing market reports regularly for the neighborhoods of Braemar, Dominion Valley and Regency I see sellers getting below list price and selling in weeks, not days. Some even have to give seller subsidy. Why? It’s a seller’s market, right?
When buyer demand is high and inventory is low we are indeed in a seller’s market. That does not mean that sellers can ignore listing preparation, hire low skill listing agents who know nothing of professional marketing and expect to get the top of the market. Consider a top athlete who is a free agent. They will get picked up, but how much money they make depends on the strength of their agent. Agency is all about advocacy. Sellers who hire listing agents are not unlike athletes or actors who have an advocate on their side advising them and helping them negotiate. Talent agents know how to best present their client’s gifts to increase demand to max out the money made.
Bringing it back to real estate and the intense buyer demand our seller’s market is facing, it is fair to say to any seller who asks if they need to complete listing preparation to sell, “No.” If the price is right for the projects left to buyers who are faced with having to pay their own closing costs, down payment and now take on projects in a home, there is no doubt the home will sell. The question is, how much is being left on the table by leaving the preparation undone? More than the cost of the preparation.
Same goes for sight unseen offers. Can a seller get a great offer before anyone has set foot in their home? Sure. If they let showings roll a few days, chances are the offers would get better and better. Why? The pressure to accept sight unseen offers is usually from buyers who know they will not be competitive in a multiple offer situation. And if they will not be competitive in a multiple offer situation, why on earth would a seller who only gets one chance at maximizing their profit not wait to see more than one offer? From my own comps, I recently watched as a seller left approximately $30,000 on the table by not being photographed or going active with their listing agent. Very few sellers I know are willing to walk away from that kind of profit.
Having a strong advocate who knows the current market conditions because they are active in them every day is so important. Let’s go back to our talent agent analogy. Do you think hiring a relative who just became a talent agent is what big name athletes and movie stars do? No. Their paychecks are dependent on outstanding representation. They sign with agents with proven track records of success and outstanding reputations. Why don’t sellers when it comes to listing? Part of the problem is that they conflate the cost of a listing agent with the bottom line they will net. They never consider that a more experienced agent will more than pay for themselves in the preparation advice, professional marketing and skilled negotiation. The other part of the problem is they think anyone with a license will do. This job has very minimal standards. Agents who are exceeding industry standards are the ones breaking records with list prices.
When it is time to list your home, even if it is in a seller’s market, pay attention to the marketing done on behalf of the other listings in this seller’s market. Are they offering staging advice and other preparation? Are they hiring a professional to take listing photos? Are they pushing sight unseen offers? There is never an easy button when it comes to getting the absolute max the market will bear. However, if a seller is okay with leaving tens of thousands on the table, any agent will do. If they want every dollar they can get, are willing to do the work and put up with a few days of showings, they will be over the moon with the results when they hire an experienced broker like me to help them through the process.
A seller’s market can be exceptionally profitable, but should not be treated as a lottery. Choosing the path with the best odds of getting top of the market will make a seller successful. That path starts with hiring the right advocate.
Wow. Just wow. Rolling into January, the prediction I made for the Bristow/Gainesville real estate market was very measured. If the past week of real estate activity is any indication of how this year is going to go, I think we are looking at a rinse and repeat of 2021. Very fast paced first half of the year.
On January 21st, I listed 14530 Kylewood Drive for $315,000. Before we hit the market we received a very serious offer from a buyer who was desperate to be in the Gainesville area in an affordable home. Having come off of the second half of 2021, where things had not be crazed, but still favoring sellers, I wondered if it may be the best offer the sellers got. Heck, based on a look at the comps when signing the listing in late December, it was likely to be the only offer. My seller wanted to work something out with the buyer, who incidentally had a home sale contingency. However, when that buyer panicked about the amount over list he had written and didn’t sign my seller’s counter that only shortened time frames, I advised my seller to withdraw his counter offer. Thank goodness he heeded my advice.
Turns out that a condo with fees at just under $500/month, got a total of fifteen offers.
15
Were any of them just at list price? Not a single one. Every offer was above list price. And surprisingly, buyers willing to waive inspections, appraisals or offer a low appraisal guarantee were back in full force. What a difference a week makes.
If you are a buyer in the western suburbs of Northern Virginia, get yourself an agent that is actively engaged in the market. A full-time professional who notices quickly when the pace or conditions shift. Looking over the fifteen offers I saw submitted, I realized how poorly some of these buyers were being represented. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
In other news my buyer-clients, who wrote their first offer in a similar price point in Warrenton over the weekend, got their offer accepted. You don’t get winning advice from agents who are barely engaged in the market.
If you need a buyer’s agent, give me a call. If you want the best results and expert evaluation of multiple offers, get in touch with me. This is what I do every day. I make it my job to know the market so I can best represent YOU.
New Year’s Eve 2021 and what is this Bristow/Gainesville Real Estate Agent doing? Starting her yearend market reports and blogging. What better topic to post about on my real estate blog than my predictions for the 2022 real estate market. This prediction is not for the country, nor the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. Instead, it is for the areas with which I am most familiar that are outlined on the chalkboard to the right of this post. Those I am most familiar with are Western Prince William County, which includes Bristow, Gainesville and Haymarket.
The real estate market in the first half of 2021 was more hectic and buyer frantic than it had been throughout all of 2020. Buyers were facing multiple offer situations, having to waive all contingencies and offer well above list price to have a chance at being chosen. The second half of 2021 is where things started to calm down. That’s not to say that the market went from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Not at all. It was still a seller’s market, but not as intense. My favorite way to explain the change in the latter half of 2021 was a weather analogy. If it were 120° outside early in the day, but later was 108°, you could say it was cooler than it had been, but 108° would still be considered hot.
The second half of 2021, while still presenting a shortage of inventory, compared to buyers in the marketplace, saw less frenzy on behalf of the buyers. Home inspections became a common request again, which was a relief to me having a few buyers actively looking. Marketing times began to creep up and seller subsidy (closing cost help) started to be seen here and there. All of this started about the time the sellers decided in late June/early July to take advantage of the seller’s market. Meanwhile, buyers who had lost out on summer vacations in 2020, were busying themselves with travel and fun. That meant putting house hunting on hold for a bit. The fall didn’t see much of a correction when they returned, rested and relaxed. The buyer frenzy had calmed, but it was still a seller’s market.
The New Year is jumping off from where we left 2021. Home prices are still high and climbing, but the rate of increase is slowing down. It’s far less likely to see a home list a at a reasonable price and see it bid up 7-10% higher. List price or a little higher is what sellers seem to be getting now. Sellers are still unlikely to have to give any closing cost help, but are much more likely to see home inspection contingencies.
No matter the market, my job remains the same–getting my sellers the maximum bottom line they can out of their largest asset. That starts with buyer enthusiasm and maintaining it throughout the process. For buyers it means making sure they find a home that meets their needs and are as protected as they can be throughout the process. Referring to the best lenders, home inspectors and title companies are just the start.
If a home sale or purchase in on your radar for 2022, let’s chat. It is never too early to start talking over the process and getting ready in advance.
