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Not everything is getting multiple offers

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Everything is getting multiple offers, right? Many sellers feel that way, but it’s just not true. Today let’s dive deeply into what is actually happening with multiple offers. I’m excited about this and I hope you like it too.

Non-locals: If you’re not local, would understanding more about multiple offers help you? Could you ask your MLS about including a “multiple offers” field? This is how I’ve been able to extract data like this for my market.

FIVE THINGS ABOUT MULTIPLE OFFERS

1) A rhythm of multiple offers: There is a rhythm to seeing multiple offers in the Sacramento region. There are more multiple offers in the spring and less as summer and fall unfold. This isn’t a huge surprise, but it’s cool to see on paper. If you wanted to know, 42% of sales last month had more than one offer (which is what I mean by “multiple offers”).

2) The market isn’t always hot: It’s tempting to talk about real estate like it’s always “hot”, but it’s not. Every year the market heats up and cools as you can see in the images below. But on top of a normal seasonal up and down dynamic we’re seeing price growth slow too. In other words, prices just haven’t been rising as fast as they used to. When it comes to multiple offers, we’re seeing fewer these days compared to the past couple years. This is such a good point for sellers to understand. The market isn’t what it used to be. It’s still very competitive if you’re priced right, but it’s not like it was in the heyday of 2013.

3) Sellers, you might just get one offer: It’s easy to think everything is getting multiple offers, but it’s not true. When looking at thousands of current pendings, 59% of homes have only one offer while 20% have two offers. Thus 79% of properties in contract right now have two offers or fewer. My advice? Price realistically for today and you might get a couple offers. But you might only get one. Oh, and if you overprice you likely won’t get any offers at all.

4) It’s more aggressive at lower prices: This won’t come as a shock, but we’re seeing more multiple offers at lower price points. Here’s a look at multiple offers among current pendings as well as recent sales. Keep in mind there aren’t many sales and pendings above $700,000, so I wouldn’t put too much weight on these categories showing a higher percentage.

5) Many layers to the onion: Looking at multiple offers is just one way to see what the market is doing. The truth is there are many layers of the onion when it comes to real estate data, which is why I advise looking to many different metrics to understand the market. In other words, it’s not just about multiple offers to me (but this is cool to see).

QUESTIONS:

How did I get this data? A few years ago our MLS started including fields for “multiple offers” and “number of offers”. I’ve been watching these metrics and reporting on them for the past year or so, but today I’ve taken it to the next level. 

Is this data reliable? I’ve had a few people question whether this data is reliable. Of course data is only good as the input by real estate agents and hopefully the truth is being told. Do some people fudge the numbers? Probably. But keep in mind we’re looking at thousands of sales and pendings, so a few outliers won’t sway the trend. Moreover, the bulk of pendings actually show just one offer, which helps support the notion of agent honesty. 

I hope this was interesting or helpful.

RECESSION PRESENTATION: I keep getting asked about home prices and a looming recession, so I put together a quick presentation to download.

BEER & HOUSING CONVERSATION: Do you want to hang out at Yolo Brewing? On Saturday October 5th from 2-5pm I’m co-hosting a get-together. Hope to see you there. Details here.

Questions: What stands out to you most about the images above? What are you seeing with multiple offers these days? I’d love to hear your take.

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How to use MLS to know how the market is moving

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How can you know right now what the real estate market is doing? What would you say if a client asked you about the market this month? You could probably rattle off some generalities about an increase of inventory and how sales are always lower in January and February. OR you could give them a few specific stats very quickly. Let me show you how.

Scroll Quickly: This post looks like it is a long read because of all the images, but it’s really not. It’s more of a demonstration than anything. I hope you like it and find a nugget or two of usefulness.

First off, do a “Standard” search from the main navigation bar.

standard search in MLS

Next select your criteria. If you want to do a search for the current month, enter the first date of the month in each field. Be sure to only select “1 house on lot” and “Sacramento” for county (or whatever counties you are searching). Then click “Statistics”.

2014 february search in mls

What Stats to Look For: After clicking “statistics” you will see quite a few numbers. What should you be looking for? Some of the most important ones are number of listings, number of pendings, number of sales, average days on market and median price (I take median price with a grain of salt though until about 7-10 days after the month is over since data can be VERY skewed until all the sales numbers are in). Click on the image below to see what the screen looks like when you hit “statistics” above. The image was too large to fit in my column.

2014 February so far 530

So What is Happening in February? Based on the image above we are seeing more listings than sales, but a large number of pending sales. Whenever there are more listings than actual sales, it’s a sign that inventory is increasing. Yet the number of pending sales also tells us that buyers are definitely hungry for real estate. Also, if you’ve been following trends you’ll notice that the average days on market is about ten days less in February so far than last month. This tells us buyers are getting into contract more quickly. The median price has increased so far in February, but again take that with a grain of salt until the month is over.

What About all of 2014? If you want to search data for the past two months (all of 2014), simply enter January 1 as you starting point. Keep in mind you could also search by city, zip code or even do a polygon search in MLS and then hit “statistics” so you know what is happening in a very specific neighborhood.

2014 january and february search in mls

Click on the image below to get a sense of how the market has been so far in 2014 in Sacramento County. As you can see there are far more listings than sales so far, but there are almost 2300 pending sales.

2014 so far 530

2-22-14- 7amFresh Coffee & Quick Glances: By the way, I’m sure everyone has seen and used the 24 hour market watch widget on your MLS home screen. I recommend looking at this whenever logging in because you can get a quick sense of what is happening in the market. So grab your cup of coffee, turn on your screen and take 10 seconds to scan listings, sales, pendings and price reductions/increases. Over time this can help us stay in tune with the market. Are there more listings than sales coming on the market? How many price reductions are there? This is a good temperature of real estate.

If this was helpful, feel free to forward the post.

Questions: Any thoughts? What are you seeing in February so far?

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