Inventory Watch

Even though there were 28 sales closed in the last week, the pendings count went UP!

There are still deals happening this close to Election Day.

Here’s how the active listings compare to the same week last year:

Fairly similar numbers to those in October, 2023!

But get this. The median list price of the active listings:

October, 2023: $3,999,450

October, 2024: $3,490,000 (-$509,450)

Get Good Help!

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Top 20 Small Cities

Not everyone craves the bright lights and crowded spaces of big cities. In fact, almost one-third of Americans (31%) say they would prefer to live in the suburbs, compared to 16% for urban areas and 24% for rural communities. Small-city life can be best for those who appreciate more wiggle room, fewer degrees of separation and shorter commutes, to name just a few of its advantages. Granted, these little urban areas demand some tradeoffs, too, such as fewer restaurant options or shorter business hours.

One of the best perks of living in a city with a relatively small population is affordability. For example, the cost of living for a two-parent, two-child family in a small New York town can be as low as around $7,000 per month, while the cost for the same family in Manhattan is nearly twice as much ($13,300), according to the Economic Policy Institute.

To find out which small cities outshine the rest, WalletHub compared more than 1,300 U.S. cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 based on 45 key indicators of livability. They range from housing costs to school-system quality to the number of restaurants per capita.

Read the full article here:

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-small-cities-to-live-in/16581

Rising Rates

The Fed did their half-point drop on September 18th, and since then the 10-year yield been rising.

Mortgage rates may or may not come down – in spite of what the Fed does.

Buyers who are waiting until next year because they think rates will be lower could be disappointed.

Don’t listen to the prognosticators – stay in the hunt for the right house at the right price!

This rate was 6.15% on September 18th.

Today’s much-anticipated jobs report ended up coming out much stronger than expected.  A stronger result was all but guaranteed to cause carnage (relative) in the mortgage market and that’s definitely what we’re seeing.  A caveat is that rates are still much lower than they were several months ago, but the average lender is now back in line with mid August levels.  Additionally, this is one of the largest single day jumps we’ve seen with the average 30yr fixed rate moving from 6.26% to 6.53%.

A move of more than 0.25% in a single day is tremendously uncommon, but it can happen due to the underlying structure of the mortgage bond market.

https://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/markets/mortgage-rates-10042024

Some Day The Surge Will Come

Another believer in the lock-in effect.

The drop in percentages is 8.5% over two years, which sounds like a full-blown liquidation event if you ask me. These are national stats so those in the more-reasonably priced areas and/or areas that didn’t appreciate much lately probably wouldn’t care as much about losing their low rate.

One of these years, there is going to be a real surge of inventory. Next year? I say probable.

NSDCC Total Number of Listings, Jan 1 – Sep 30

2018: 3,998

2019: 3,969

2020: 3,714

2021: 3,254

2022: 2,570

2023: 2,137

2024: 2,445

This year has had +14% more listings than last year, so hopefully we’re past the bottom.

Who is rooting for 3,000-ish for the selling season next year? Besides me! 😆

Friendly Deer Population

It will be a very long time before people like this can afford a home here (if ever), so they might as well move elsewhere. But he also touches on the perceived ‘travesty’ of property tax rules, which makes me think that the youngsters will dismantle Prop 13 once all the elderly die off.

When wealth advisor Clint McCalla, 37, lived in San Diego with his wife and kids, they loved being close to the beach and the world-class zoo.

“It was a beautiful city and great place to raise a family,” explains McCalla. “But the cost of living was far too high to justify staying.”

They were renting a house—and having trouble finding one to buy.

“Property tax rules in California are a travesty,” says McCalla. “You currently have a system that provides legacy real estate owners and investors with a disproportionate benefit relative to new buyers. Combine that with a state that has refused to build new housing in any significant way for 20 years, and it creates the problem we now see.”

That, along with income taxes, factored into the couple’s decision to leave California and move to Austin, TX, in September 2023.

Now that they’ve settled in, the McCallas couldn’t be happier with their choice.

“Almost everything costs less in Austin,” says McCalla. “Housing is the biggest savings for our family. We’ve been able to buy a wonderful home in an excellent school district with great neighbors, sunset views, and an exceedingly friendly deer population.”

Although he misses his friends and colleagues dearly, he knows the move was the right decision for his family. “I didn’t feel like we would ever be in the position to get ahead in California, with how things were trending,” McCalla says.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/where-wealthy-millennials-moving-to-and-from/

Make Me Sell

Last week I received a call from the Compass Chief of Staff to President of Growth & Communications. His job was to notify all of the Compass agents who published something about our new program that took the same name as the now-defunct program at Zillow. Does Zillow recognize the powerhouse that Compass has become and try to parlay the opportunity into something positive for both companies? Of course not. Instead, they threatened to sue Compass for using their old slogan that they don’t use any more.

While Jacob and I were chatting it up, I had to ask, “Of the 30,000 Compass agents, how many calls do you have to make on this topic?” His answer? Six. Only six Compass agents in the country are doing some sort of website/blog! He was shocked when I told him that we get 1/3 of our business from blog readers.

Here is the same blog post I ran when the MMM program was first announced – now with Make Me Sell as the new name:

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