Finally, It's Fall

This morning was a stark contrast with yesterday, when it was 64 degrees at 6 AM.  Today, it was 37 degrees, and I went running with gloves and a jacket, for the first time this fall.  Starting yesterday afternoon, we saw fall blowing in--although we had one little taste of the season in the last week of August, so we shouldn't give up hope of some more warm weather just yet.

Cooler weather, though, makes people come inside.  The imminent end to Daylight Savings Time exacerbates that tendency.  What do they do indoors?  They look at real estate online, among other things, and the longer evenings indoors gives them more time to do it.  Once they look, they may start attending open houses, or scheduling showings.  It's only a few weeks until the shortest day of the year, when we can begin to anticipate spring again.

During October and November, though, buyers who look are more likely to buy, and to close quickly.  Sellers should therefore keep their homes decluttered, rake their leaves, and be reasonable on prices, so that they can be the ones to attract the fall buyers.  While some houses do sell in the dead of winter, these precious weeks of fall offer more chances to sell, and sellers should facilitate that wherever possible.

Let the crisp air invigorate you, and your real estate plans and dreams.  It's the perfect time to act!

More on the Market

I just gave a press interview on the results of the first quarter in our area. Those results were dreadful. Very little sold, and what sold did so at lower prices. The activity has picked up since then, although those sales won't show up until the second quarter.

What is interesting to those of us in the business, who believe that we are bumping along the bottom, is to guess when the bump will start trending up. Units always increase before prices, and, while prices may continue to go down for a while longer, units should begin to increase. Once activity improves, pent up demand for new housing may cause houses to flood the market, as homeowners seek to trade up or down. That increase in supply will satisfy the still anemic demand for some time to come.

The lesson here is that there is a window, which has already opened in East Rock and Spring Glen, where those contrarians who seek to sell in the face of awful media reports have gotten or are getting surprising high prices. Not much was on the market, and people who needed to be in place for jobs beginning in the summer or fall, or those who needed to move for one reason or another, were competing for just a few houses. Multiple offers, many over the asking price, were common. That may change as people have more choices.

A word to the wise: He who hesitates is lost. List now.