Market Challenges: Always Different, but Always There

In the 15 years I have been practicing real estate, I’ve experienced a number of market shifts. Within those market shifts have been countless seasons, each presenting a unique set of challenges to consumers in the marketplace, buyers and sellers alike.

In the market between 2008 and 2009, for example, it was incredibly challenging for home sellers to yield a reasonable number for their homes if they were in a market area with a high incidence of distressed sales. Short sales, bank-owned properties, and fixer-uppers were selling at deep discounts. Even if you had an absolute show piece to sell, if you were surrounded by enough of these low selling fixer-uppers, it affected your bottom line.

In the late 2012 and early 2013 market, conditions turned practically on a dime. Competitive bidding resumed on properties and buyers were competing against one another with consistency for the first time in almost six years. Homes were starting to sell for as much as their asking price. Inventory began to restrict in the most sought-after locations.

In 2020, we’ve had several seasons: first, a market that had incredible momentum coming out of a hot 2019 with no signs of slowing and very little available inventory. It was great to be a home seller, and not so great to be a buyer.

Next, COVID-19 reached our shores and triggered an economic lockdown that included shelter-in-place orders for the month of April nationally, and much longer in certain states, Pennsylvania included. All of a sudden, if you wanted to buy or sell a home, you had to be willing to utilize virtual techniques. Zoom or Facetime tours became the norm to show your home or to see one that you were interested in and bid on sight unseen. You had to take a leap of faith that movers would be available by the time settlement day came along, remain optimistic that appraisers would eventually be back to their work in the process, and so on.

Then, as late May approached, real estate was re-categorized as an essential business and in-person activity resumed. All of the home buyers and sellers who were not willing to navigate in a virtual environment over the prior seven weeks (by my estimation, about 75% of consumers) suddenly hit the marketplace in droves. Competition for the few homes that are on the market has been fast, and furious, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Now, we’re going to have to see what Election Day and the preceding campaign season brings our way. In past election years, it’s been a fourth quarter lull.

My point here is, every market has its challenges for consumers, whether they are buying or selling. Those challenges are fluid — forever changing, and rarely the same twice. Recognize that it’s never going to be easy. Most market shifts make it easier to sell and harder to buy, or vice versa.

I certainly have my own horse in the race on this next statement, so take it at face value: navigating all of these changes and the element of uncertainty in any market is the exact reason it always makes sense to have professional help. Active, useful, insightful, professional help.

Maybe in one market it’ll be easy for you to find buyers for the home you want to sell. Congratulations, you’ve just completed step one out of about 100. And if that step is easy, I can promise you that another step is going to be a challenge.

As a homebuyer, you can surely find listings online and even schedule a showing using a link right on your favorite website. And then you’ll meet with an agent for the first time at the doorstep to take a look. And then maybe try to buy it. But is that the way you want to go about purchasing what will likely be the single biggest financial investment of your life?

Finding homes has become exponentially more convenient for consumers in the past several years. And I love that; it makes the process of searching and locating options more collaborative. Helping our clients find homes is not why they came to us for help, anyway, so I don’t feel like I’ve lost “the key” (no pun intended) to my value in the process. I’ve never viewed my sole value proposition for buyers to be the fact that I have access to all the homes in the market.

My closing point is twofold. One, there’s always going to be something easy about the market you’re about to navigate if you are buying a home or selling one. Two, there will always be a bunch of things that are really complicated.

You never go to the professionals in any area of service to solve the easy problem for you. It’s the difficult stuff that you need us for. We’re dealing directly with rapidly-changing market conditions every day, which means we’re always taking the pulse of what challenges exist for clients. I think 2020 has been the best example of this in all of my years in this business. But who knows what 2021 will bring our way.