Should I Stay or Should I Go?
The Kinks famously asked us this very question, but unfortunately they didn’t give us an answer and now we’re stuck having to figure that out for ourselves. Fortunately, if you’re asking that question about selling your house, buying a new home or investing in Central Florida’s amazing real estate market, you are not alone. You could go to a fortune teller for answers or even better, you could seek the professional guidance of a Realtor.
There are dozens of industry related publications put out each month that offer insider perspectives, statistical analysis and opinions on all matters related to the real estate market. These publications range to national institutions such as the National Association of Realtors, our local board of Realtors down to a local agent such as myself posting on his blog. A Realtor can help you processes this information in different ways in order to form a picture that shows the market’s past history, current status and what we think might be future performance, all in an effort to answer the same questions that are on every buyer, seller or investor’s mind:
Q. Is the market good or bad?
A: My answer to this question is always “Yes”. Good & Bad are perceptions based on one’s unique perspective, so while the market may appear to be good for one person, it may appear to be bad to another. In actuality, markets are fluid, evolving things that are constantly in flux and evasive when to attempting to accurately define. The real question you should be asking is will selling or buying create a negative or positive result based on your own individual circumstances and a good Realtor can help you make that determination.
Q. Is this a buyer or seller’s market?
A: “Yes” again. A buyer’s market is normally defined as when the number of available properties exceeds the perceived demand, which creates pressure to keep prices competitive, resulting in what is commonly referred to as a “buyer’s market”. A “seller’s market” is pretty much the opposite: the amount of available properties is limited based on the amount of perceived demand, resulting in prices that are less competitive. While these market depictions may be reflective in general, they do not take into account any of the other factors such as interest rates, economic conditions, etc. that greatly impact real estate markets.
Q. Are prices moving up or down?
A: This is another question to which I always answer “Yes.” One thing that the real estate industry is really good at is tracking the numbers. Any real estate agent or broker can easily access and pull together data that shows the number of properties sold and for what price in any given area. They can even drill down further into the numbers and show you recently sold, pending and active prices and averages of houses with specific features and then break these numbers down in multiple ways to give you a multi-faceted numerical viewpoint. When looking at these numbers over a period of time, a pattern will often emerge that reflects past performance, which is one of the factors we use to formulate our opinion regarding the pricing trends going forward. While the knowing the numbers is very important, it’s just as important to remember that the numbers do not always tell the whole story and the past is often an inaccurate predictor of the future.
Q. Is now a good time to buy or sell?
A: If you’ve read this far, you probably know that my answer is “Yes”. Interest rates are at historical lows, so maybe it’s a good time for you to buy. If you sell your current house and make a profit, maybe now is a good time to sell. But even if you are a hardcore real estate investor, the decision to sell your house or buy a new home isn’t made in a vacuum and is rarely made based only on the statistics or maximizing your ROI. For most of us, the time to sell or buy is very personal and often emotional decision that is determined by our own unique situation.
The fact that you’re here reading my blog means that you are thinking to maybe sell your house, buy a new home or invest in Central Florida’s amazing real estate market, which also means you need to talk to a Realtor. In addition to helping you with all of the processes and documentation required, a Realtor will help you effectively analyze and evaluate the market conditions factoring in criteria that’s important to you and your personally unique situation.