As we enter into the fall season, things are picking up again from the slightly more sluggish market of August. (And is there a better word for just about anything in August than "sluggish?") Almost every year, we see a bit of a dip in August, and a pick up after Labor Day, after vacations are over, kids are back to school, and people are a little more "back to business." Over the past few years, this cycle is a little less reliable as things have been in a nearly nonstop upward trajectory. In August, the month's supply of homes for sale stayed the same as it was in July, at just under 2 months, and it's the highest it's been since October of '23. Now, we're still not near a balanced market (that's closer to 6 months of inventory), but it's definitely better than it has been. Overwhelmingly, we're still seeing homes that are "done" are selling quickly, and we're still seeing plenty of homes sell for over asking price. The homes that are not "done," or are not priced accordingly, are sitting for much longer than they would have six months ago. Numbers are great, but easy to find and harder to unpack. Anecdotally, I've been tracking price reductions in our market since the beginning of the summer. What had been a pretty consistent 250 reductions per week at the beginning of the summer has been steadily creeping up, sticking at around 350 for weeks, and now tipping into the low 400's. Is that a terrible indicator? No. More likely it's a cooling of the crazy market that we've been in, where everyone wants to price higher than the last one, and not every home, nor every location, warrants that type or jet fueled appreciation. Additionally, when working with buyers, I've seen they have a bit more variety, and given that money has been and continues to be more expensive to borrow, they're a little more choosy about where they spend it on, meaning pricing is more important than it was even 5 or 6 months ago. As always, if you have questions about YOUR neighborhood, area, or home, or where you want to live, please reach out. I'm happy to break down the data that's specific to your situation.

It's January, and everybody's making their list of things that they want to accomplish in 2024 and I'm right there with you. But if one of the things that you want to do this year or hope to do this year is buy a home, one of the questions that you probably have is 2024 gonna be better to buy than 2023 was, because it was not that easy last year to buy a house, especially if it was your first home. So here are my predictions for what 2024 is going to look like if you are a homebuyer. We've already seen interest rates drop and that is fantastic because last year they inched up and inched up and inched up to a point where for a lot of people, it was just too expensive to buy a house. But we've already seen them come down and the Federal Reserve has already said that they're going to reduce rates a few times over the course of this year. So I think that we have some good predictions that rates are going to come down to a more attainable, not 3%, but a more attainable spot. So we are unlikely to see those 3%, sub 3%, rates anytime, possibly ever. So if you're waiting for rates to drop back to three, you're going to be waiting a really long time, most likely. And you probably don't want to do that if you're seriously thinking about buying. But as rates come down, it will be more attainable payment wise. But what I want you to keep in mind is if you've been waiting on the sidelines thinking maybe I'm gonna wait to buy a house, remember that right now we're in January, the market is tight with inventory, we still don't have a ton of homes out there and as rates go down, more buyers are going to be entering the market. So if you're thinking you'd like to buy this year, maybe you're thinking I want to buy in spring, you're thinking sometime this year I want to buy I'm going to wait until spring when more homes are on the market. Start looking now because there is less competition out there now in January and February then there will be trust me in March, April, May. So if you're thinking and you're able to buy now with the rates as they are, get out there now, start identifying what you like, what you don't like, and figure out when you can actually move forward because this year is shaping up to definitely have lower rates than last year. Maybe a little bit more inventory though it might be the same and we are gonna see a lot of competition. So get your head in the game. Give me a call. Let's chat. I'll put you in touch with a lender and let's make a game plan to get you in a home in 2024.