I’m not sure that you will believe me when I say that we aren’t facing a housing shortage. I mean, everyone around us is griping about the fact that there is no inventory. It’s on the news, nationally and locally. I’m sure you’ve heard friends and family talking about how they have been trying to buy a house but they can’t because there is “nothing” on the market.
At first glance it surely does look like there is nothing available. Nationally inventory is down 29% (year over year, comparing December 2020 to December 2021). Locally, here in Basking Ridge, we typically have 150+ houses on the market. It has been months since we’ve seen more than 25 properties listed at any given time.
Yet, the number of closed sales is way up. Far more houses were sold in 2021 than in 2020 and pre-pandemic in 2017, 2018 and 2019. How can there be a shortage of something, when at the end of the day we are consistently selling more than we ever have before?
It’s not only about how many houses are available today, it’s about the pace of the market. How quickly are the available houses being sold? There are far fewer houses on the market at any given time because housing demand is so high that supply can’t keep up with the pace.
So, rest assured that you WILL be able to buy that new-to-you house, it just might take time to find it and a very competitive bid to buy it. What can you do in the mean time?
– get pre-approved
– save more for a down payment
– revisit your requirements
– build a relationship with an agent local to your target area. Someone with a solid presence and a network that runs deep in that community.
Remember the six “D”s and you’ll realize that there will always be houses to buy.
