The best time to buy is of course when Availability is high, Prices are low, and Interest rates are reasonable. API… Availabilty, Price, Interest.
Now, before I go any further, let me preface this by saying that I have been studying the Greater SF Bay area market pretty intently for 5 years, and I have never before made a prediction about the market. I am frequently asked, because people naturally assume that I have access to sources of information that they do not. In some small way this is true, but there certainly is no crystal ball, and I do not like making predictions if I feel they are really no better than a coin flip.
Additionally, understand that I really don’t gain in any measurable way if the market does in fact improve. If anything folks like Mark and I just get more work, not more reward, during high transaction periods.
Now that I have prefaced this, here is my prediction. If the Federal reserve follows through on their strong hint they dropped last week to reduce rates again in December, I believe we will have finally arrived at that confluence of factors that says this is the best time to buy in the foreseeable future. Rates will be very favorable, prices will be, well, where they are, which is down significantly from a peak several years ago, and there will be a large inventory to select from. In other words, API is in effect.
What does this mean for consumers? If you have been waiting to find the right time to start researching currently available inventory to position yourself to buy when the time is perfect, you need to look behind you. That time has arrived. If you have been doing your homework, now is the time to contact your REALTOR ® and discuss your goals. If you are an investor, you are probably already ahead of me on this and are looking to make some purchases just before or just after the new year.
What does this mean for REALTORS ®? Make sure your clients, whether buyers or sellers, are positioned to take advantage of this if I am correct.
What does this mean for home owners? Finally, a little bit of relief and light at the end of the tunnel. If you have been trying to sell your house, you can start to breathe a little bit easier, because as inventory first levels off and then begins to decrease, there will be a chain reaction and you will likely benefit along with most of the other folks who are scratching their head as they sign their third listing extension. If you have been watching your property value diminish; remember that, while it certainly doesn’t always feel like it, that number is somewhat ephemeral. It can and will go back up, often quickly as inventory that sometimes saps a neighborhoods value finally moves off the market.
So, that is my first ever reasoned real estate market prediction. The best time to buy? In my opinion we will be there in about a month, and the window for that ‘peak’ opportunity will be approximately 9 months.
Just my opinion. What is yours?
[…] So, to boil it down to a few practical examples. A members blog site might highlight particular knowledge that they have, or highlight things to look for and things to avoid. I advise people to take questions or examples they get in their trade and blog them. Have a disastrous scenario? Get what value you can from it, and write a somewhat self mocking ‘don’t let this happen to you story’. Somone asks you whether they think interest rates will go up or down (e.g. is this a good time to buy)… rather than trying to formulate an answer to this complex question, I would suggest they say that this is such an interesting question that they will have to write their response in a blog. If one person is asking the question, there are certainly more out there, so the philosophy becomes to put your wisdom where your website is, and post that content, that knowledge, online. (for example, my post on the best time to buy. […]
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