We are all under a tremendous amount of stress, and our daily lives, our country and, potentially, our health is being impacted in ways that we cannot predict.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
We have had to re-calibrate the way we do practically everything from handling our interface with clients, our team meetings, open houses, marketing, inspections, appraisals and closings. From soup to nuts, everything is being tweaked to keep all parties safe and minimize physical contact. Luckily, everyone in all of the affiliated industries and townships is pulling together to make sure that buyers and sellers get to the finish line and I am now feeling confident that we can get our transactions closed.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
We have seen a definite shift in the balance of power between buyers and sellers over the last two weeks. Buyers, sensing a shift in the market are pushing back harder in negotiations and some are dropping out of deals. Sellers are feeling that they have less leverage and are nervous about transactions staying viable. Buyers have been unable to view homes and sellers have been holding back putting their homes on the market worrying that they won’t get as many showings or that having people inside their homes is not safe.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
There are fewer homes coming on the market and fewer going under contract since the first weeks of this month. We saw a 30% drop in new listings and a 45% reduction in the number of homes going “under contract” from the second to the third week in March. Yesterday, our photographer noted that he usually shoots 160 homes per week and is scheduled for only 40 this week. That’s a huge indicator that sellers are holding off listing their homes.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
There will be a lot of pent up demand from buyers and inventory coming on from sellers when this tide breaks and we want you to be prepared and competitive when that time comes. I predict that this ordeal will cause many people to re-evaluate their lives. Re-thinking where they live, who they live with and what type of housing they need. Even now some city dwellers are scrambling to find out of town rentals or homes to purchase.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
We’ve seen this here in our market and here’s an article from Bloomberg on this trend:
Bloomberg Article on NY Suburbs
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
The good news is that things will normalize. We are suggesting that potential buyers and sellers capitalize on this “downtime” so they are up and running when that time comes. To that end, we are offering video buyer consultations and video listing consultations to anyone who would like to talk with us. If you are a buyer we can get to know your family, send you market data and listings, answer your process questions and teach you about the community. You can work on getting your pre-approval in place and be totally ready to hit the ground when the time is right. And sellers can give us video tours of their homes so we can suggest a “to do” list that can be accomplished with there is so much at home time. We can also discuss pricing, marketing and how our team works to get homes sold.
[vr_spacer size=”10″]
If you are interested in seizing this time as an opportunity let’s set up a time to video conference to talk confidentially. Please reach out to me at [email protected].
[vr_spacer]
The Allison Ziefert Real Estate Group is a top producing real estate team based at Keller Williams MidTown Direct in Maplewood, NJ. We are local market experts, specializing in real estate and homes in Maplewood, South Orange, Millburn/Short Hills, Montclair and West Orange, NJ and the surrounding towns. We are driven by earning great testimonials and referral business from happy clients. You can read our testimonials at www.azhomesnj.com/testimonials.
Contact Us
By submitting information, I am providing my express written consent to be contacted by representatives of this website through a live agent, artificial or prerecorded voice, and automated SMS text at my residential or cellular number, dialed manually or by autodialer, by email, and mail.
