Everything changes!
I just had an experience I want to share. A few years ago when working with new home builders it was tough to get anything done. They would start a subdivision, put up a sign that said “Home Starting at $400K” and it felt like the prices started rising before the paint was dry on the sign.
We would attempt to negotiate a deal and unless we were willing to pay full price and expect minimal concessions there was not going to be a deal. The reality was that they knew if we did not buy that house that someone would so they had no motivation to work with us.
Wind forward to today. I was out working with a couple and we wanted to look at new construction. The budget said we could go upto $350K. I went into a subdivision in the area we wanted to be in and the first thing I found was that the price was too high for my clients. The builder had homes in the low to mid $400K range.
As I explained that to the agent on site his first response was “bring them in, we will work something out”. We were more than $70,000 below their lowest price home and he says we can work it out. I believe I could have gotten $100,000 off the price of his listings (about 25%) and we had not even put an offer in writing.
The reality is that people behave as though nothing will change and the way things are now is the way they will always be. My point is that it will NEVER stay the same. The climate of 3 years ago is very different today and today will be very different than 3 years from now. We will be in this buyers market for a while but the new construction builders are not building. Their houses are selling because they are discounted but they are not replacing them. It will take 3 years to get them back in production and I would say we will have a shortage again.
If you are ready to buy then now is the time. Don’t let the drive by media scare you into thinking this is not true.
Thanks for listening,
Jerry W. Robertson