Many of our buyer clients are tense right now because despite accounts of a buyer’s market, and desperate sellers, the reality on the ground can seem much different.  A number of buyers are experiencing multiple offers, and very few options.  Why is this? Two big reasons:

  1.       The normal life cycle of someone’s active use of their home runs 3-5 years, after which life changes and it is frequently time to move on.  Because of equity loss, many sellers since 2005 are unable to list their property without writing a very large check, or short selling and destroying their credit.  They are therefore staying put, or renting – pulling thousands of opportunities (listings) from the hands of anxious buyers.

 2.       The foreclosure process in many jurisdictions has halted due to new mediation requirements which has stalled that pipeline as well. This translates into very few buyable opportunities for most buyers in many market categories.

If you’d like more information, contact me.

Tags: DC real-estate, DC-housing, Home Sales, Washington DC Housing, Washington DC real estate
Posted on Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 at 8:51 am. Follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.