Real Estate Confidential is a bi-weekly chit-chat about new listings, sales, or other insider info on the Martha’s Vineyard Real Estate market, presented by Fred Roven, owner/broker of Martha’s Vineyard Buyer Agents. It appears every other Friday in The Minute.
One of the biggest questions in real estate right now is when will sellers return to the market. You are desperately needed. To give you an idea of just how dire the situation has become, we currently have less than a two-month supply of inventory and not nearly enough homes being listed to satisfy the — so far — ever increasing demand.
So, what is the cause of all this demand? The reason for high prices is easy to see and not any different from historic real estate patterns and most any business environment. High buyer interest is creating a major imbalance between supply and demand. Selling your home now enables you to take advantage of buyer demand and get the most attention for your house before more homes are listed for sale.
Also, as a result of the supply and demand imbalance, bidding wars and offers with escalation clauses become more the norm rather than the exception. As buyers face increasingly tough competition while searching for homes to purchase, they are likely to be more flexible and generous during negotiations. Some of the panic buying can be attributed to homes selling within days of being listed for sale and for sellers this can mean very few showings to get your home sold so you can move on to your next adventure.
But, why are buyers feeling an urgency to buy? Some of the reasons are ongoing because of current mortgage rates, which are lower than in recent memory. Of course, there is the shortage of inventory as described above and an interesting pandemic related pattern. More and more couples living in big cities are finding themselves working from home and their children studying remotely from all levels of schools and colleges. Many of these buyers have spent weeks or months renting on Martha’s Vineyard in the past and this series of events left many who had been thinking about second-home possibilities for years ready to take that leap. About a year ago, this led to an average six-month supply of inventory that began dropping and now stands at less than two.
Rarely have we seen a better time to sell your home regardless of where on the Island you live. In this market you have the opportunity to choose the best buyer for your particular needs and be selective about when to close, what contingencies to allow and what renovations to complete before listing your home for sale or while negotiating your sales contract. If you have any thoughts at all of selling your home over the next year, call your real estate broker today! If you need help selecting a selling broker, give me a call and I will help with the selection but do it today! One favor, please do not tell my buyer clients they will be searching in an inventory desert as we wait for you to list your home for sale.
The slide presentation this week is homes that have sold at the median price over the last six months both Island-wide and in their individual towns, to give you an idea of what to expect. These averages are growing now and certainly will slow as the demand begins to be satisfied. The home that sits in the middle price of all homes sold the past six months is in Vineyard Haven and sold at $1,300,000.
Click here for a list of homes currently for sale
For more Real Estate Confidentials, click here.
