In years past, we really didn’t expect great home sales activity in January and February. Sure, we’d sell four or five each month, but nothing dramatic. In fact, that was the time we used preparing for the unofficial start of the peak selling season … March 1. (Some agents will tell you the peak selling season starts Easter weekend but I think it’s much earlier).
We were used to buyers starting their home searches in March but not buying for a couple of months or even into summer when the kids get out of school and there would be a larger selection of homes. But we noticed something odd two years ago and it repeated itself last year.
For two years in a row now, we’ve had a very busy January through May and both years thought we were going to blow our sales volume out of the water. If it had kept up we would have, but by summer, the buyers slowed down to a trickle. And it wasn’t just us. All of our fellow KW agents were seeing the same thing.
I was concerned it was the start of the dreaded “shift” everyone has been talking about, but I found out later, it wasn’t. It was simply due to a greater number of buyers making their purchases earlier than we were accustomed to and by May there weren’t enough new buyers to replenish the buyers who were by then out of the market. As a result, inventory increased, homes stayed on the market longer, and prices started dropping.
Will this happen again? I have no idea, only time will tell, but I seriously doubt we’re going to be able to sustain this kind of torrid sales activity month after month through the summer. I’ve learned there are cycles within seasons and we just happen to be in a good one right now.
We’ve been encouraging our sellers to get their homes onto the market earlier this year than ever. And so far, it’s paid off for quite a few of them. All of the homes you see below are in title (and the list doesn’t include another $3MM of homes we have under contract we can’t share with you right now or the $2.8 Million we’ve already closed on).
The takeaway from this post? If you’re planning on selling your home this year, right now is the time to get it onto the market. We know what the market’s doing right now, we just don’t know what it will look like in several months.
Homes We Have Under Contract Right Now
