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Watching listings, the word on the street, & being negative

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This shabby chic piece hangs in my office and I love the phrase. The market is always moving. It’s just true. This means there is always something new to say and understand about housing trends.
 
 
Anyway, here are four things on my mind:
 
1) Watching listings: I am getting many questions about what prices are doing, but we just don’t have many sales yet. Like I said last week, only 2.9% of all sales in March actually got into contract after March 12th, which is the day our pandemic seemed to kick into high gear with events cancelling and such. While we don’t have many sales yet, we do have listings which will give us clues where the market is heading. Are you seeing price reductions? Are properties sitting instead of selling? Are new listings tending to get into contract at lower levels than recent sales or current pendings? Are buyers absorbing inventory or not?
 
2) Don’t be so negative: I’ve been told a few times lately to lay off talking so negatively about the market, but what I’m doing is sharing facts. In truth I’m not being positive or negative. My goal is to be neutral and sling perspective without sensationalism. In other words, let’s talk about the market that actually exists while not getting swept away in every scary headline that may or may not happen. The reality is facts are neutral and less-than-positive sounding stats are not a threat either because they help us make decisions.
 
3) Mindset vs market conditions: In real estate it’s tempting to only speak positively about the housing market. It’s like a Harry Potter world, but instead of not being able to say the name of you know who, we cannot talk about the market changing (sorry if you didn’t get the reference). The bottom line is there’s a huge difference between having a positive mindset in life and being real about market conditions. Those are two distinct things.
 
4) Word on the street: Right now we are beginning to get some solid pandemic real estate data which I share below, but we’re still waiting to see exactly what happens to the direction of prices over time. This is why the word on the street is so powerful. What are buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals saying, doing, and believing about the market? The truth is the stories of today become the stats of tomorrow. On that note, here is a Twitter poll I have going. There is nothing scientific here, but it’s fascinating to have these conversations. One day left if you want to jump in.
 
 
Okay, moving on.
 

A FEW RESOURCES:

Zoom call this morning: If you’re around, I’m doing a public Zoom session on Thursday April 8 at 11am. A local real estate office asked me to do this and they opened it up to anyone. Hopefully there is not a cap to the number of people. Anyway, you can see the Facebook event for details or click here to sign in on Zoom. I’ll give a brief market update and then we’ll do Q&A.

UPDATE: Here’s a recording of the Zoom meeting.

New market video: Here is a new market video from a few days ago. This is 20 minutes. I’ve been having a blast and I’ll keep doing these as long as people keep watching. Check it out below or here.

Mike DelPrete: If you’ve watched any of my videos lately I’ve mentioned Mike DelPrete’s graphs and analysis. This guy is bringing important perspective. Here’s a 29-minute webinar from last week.
 

Fresh pandemic real estate visuals: Here are some visuals to show how the pandemic is affecting the local market. Right now we don’t have much data on prices, but that will come in time.

I hope this was interesting or helpful. Thanks for being here.

Questions: Why do you think it’s so tempting to talk about real estate in glowing terms? What do you think of my thoughts on market conditions vs mindset?

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Great Post, got some good ideas on how to discuss with the local agents down here in Temecula.
    Starting to look at canceled, withdrawn and hold. Will compare that with the total volume next week to see what if any changes there have been. So far things are relatively stable, but the next 30 to 45 days will probably tell a much different story. Great insight thanks. The video from Mike DelPrete was great and thank you for introducing him. Take good care of yourself and stay safe.

    Reply

  6. Hello Ryan,
    Excellent YouTube. Always great objective information.
    Please send me the slides. I’d like to post a few on my Facebook.
    Also, I would love a HOPE piece of artwork if possible.
    Thank you!

    Reply

  8. Thank you Ryan – I really appreciated your honest insights and info here and at our KW meeting you recently spoke at. Honesty is one of the best gifts we can give our real estate clients. Have a Happy Easter and a great week! 🙂

    Reply

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