As we head into the holidays...

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Real Estate

As we head into the holidays, you might think that the real estate market would be slow; but once again, the market continues to be full of surprises!  It may feel like it’s less active but that’s only because there are seasonally fewer homes for sale.  There are still plenty of interested buyers.  There have been some recent announcements in our industry, like the withdrawing of Zillow from their iBuyer program in which they would purchase your home for an overblown price tag, then attempt to sell it for more.  Yep, that didn’t work (shocking)!!  Or the fact that we’ve seen interest rates start to creep up and threaten to go higher in the months to come, but it looks like they’ve come back down in recent days so that doesn’t seem to have affected buyers either.  If anything, they’re trying to be in for the holidays and beat the threat of those increased interest rates.


Of course, there’s more to come on the horizon I’m sure, but for now we’re still seeing homes that when priced with the market receive an offer or two within a few weeks.  If I were to make a prediction, I would say that we’ve seen the ‘frenzy’ market generated by the pandemic come to an end and we’ll start to experience a more balanced, normal market in 2022 (if there is such a thing).  


For almost 30 years, I’ve watched the real estate market very closely.  What I can tell you is that there is no ‘normal’ and even the words ‘balanced’ or ‘neutral’ don’t ever seem to happen.  It’s either a seller’s market -- like it is now where we have more buyers than there are homes to put them in; or it’s a buyer’s market -- which we haven’t seen in over a decade!  What I do know is that our property values have gone up 35% over the past two years - that’s somewhat unbelievable - although I have seen values begin to level off in recent weeks.  Some have mentioned to me that they’re seeing prices falling but that’s just sellers who think they’re in the frenzy market (but who missed it) overprice their homes and within weeks find it necessary to make a price reduction -- not a good strategy!


What I do NOT think will happen is a bubble bursting market.  Too many people want to come to the Sacramento area -- it’s no longer a secret that we have a lot to offer!  What I do think will happen eventually is that more and more buyers will be priced out of our market.  With the interest rates remaining in the high 2% to low 3%, payments have been able to stay ‘relatively’ low, but with property values having gone up and when the cost of money rises, those two combined could quickly shift our market.  


So… if you’ve been thinking of selling a home, I do think we’re floating along the top of the market.  Sure, values could continue to go up in a more moderate fashion, but there are some unknown factors that will come into play in the coming months.  I don’t have a crystal ball to know what the spring will bring, but one thing’s for sure.  We no longer have a ‘seasonal’ real estate market.  Like the saying goes… you might want to “strike while the iron is hot”, so you don’t miss it.


Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season!
-Kellogg Family Real Estate Team