Spring Market Looks Better for Sellers than Buyers This Year

Posted by: iowahomeloans on: April 29, 2013

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The spring market is always a busy time for the real estate market, with a higher number of sales and more profitable sales during the spring than any other time of year. Sellers know that buyers start looking in spring, and buyers know that they’ve got more inventory options in spring so this is the time to buy. After the recession started to hit the economy hard, the housing market began shifting more in favor of buyers than sellers, with buyers able to command concessions and price drops just to get a home sold. Since the economy has been recovering, the market has been shifting back – and this year the spring market officially looks better for sellers than buyers.

 

What This Means for Sellers

For sellers, this is great news. Gone are the days of heavy concessions and price drops just to sell a home. We’re returning to the glory days of multiple offers and even bidding wars, in some housing markets. For sellers, this means that homes are selling faster and at higher prices – this is the absolute best time to sell a home compared to the past five years. However, home prices in many areas haven’t rebounded to the levels they were at before the recession, which has made some sellers reluctant to sell and take a cash loss. This has led to some inventory issues; not enough homes to sell, and could slow down home sales throughout later quarters in the year.

 

What This Means for Buyers

For buyers, this is not-so-great news. With homes selling more quickly in this year’s spring market, buyers have fewer homes to look at and less inventory to choose from. Buyers are also being forced to choose and jump quickly, because properties are selling faster. And buyers are on the wrong end of those bidding wars, with prices climbing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a desirable property. This doesn’t mean that buyers shouldn’t buy now – but it does mean that buyers should go into the home-buying process with a strategy, and stick to it.