Showings really slowed down this past week according to stats through Wednesday, will be interesting to see how much they pop up again this next week.
Coming soon listings dropped a bit and new listings rose as last week’s coming soon listings became active. Pending sales rose in response to more new listings.
Bidding wars have been the bane of buyers this year, with many buyers getting so weary of losing out in multiple offers that they gave up and stopped looking. Don’t despair, it is getting better.
One sign is the increase in price reductions, which have been slowly increasing… now 2.3 times as many as in April… and price changes in 2011 were 2.3 times what they are now.
This is an indication that the fierce competition is decreasing.
Redfin recently reported that bidding wars in August reached their lowest level since a year ago.
These are national numbers, so I wondered what is happening in our market. I can feel that the intense bidding wars of the spring market are no longer with us, but there are still many properties that sell with multiple offers.
There is no category in the MLS to indicate which properties sold in bidding wars, but many agents post in agent comments when multiple offers have been received. I searched for those comments to get a rough count of multiple offers. The chart below gives a count rather than a percentage as the Redfin chart has, but it clearly shows the contrast between 2020 and 2021, with a peak in April 2021 and numbers gradually dropping since then. While not totally accurate, it does show the multiple offer trend.
The takeaway for buyers is… if you stopped looking earlier this year because of the competition, it may be time to come back for another look.
The takeaway for sellers is… don’t expect your property to sell with as many offers as there were last spring, but if you prepare your home to show well and don’t price too aggressively there are still buyers ready to make an offer on your home!
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results – shensrud@homesmsp.com
