I think the bubble is popping.
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Anonymous
| We are looking in Olney and many houses are now contingent rather than contract. This is good news for me and the prices are dropping too. |
Anonymous
What I'm seeing is a significant[i] slowdown, with properties sitting much much longer and significant price drops. We're talking 20-30% off list, if not more. This is generally the $2M+ market. (And if Jeff doesn't stop deleting my screenshots...I could show more data, but it looks like he doesn't like it. Oh well.) I'm still seeing idiot sellers in the $1-$2M range, who: - are too late to the market now, the bell curve has shifted. - Should have listed last year if they wanted to make money from their house - are thinking people will pay in July 2021, what they were paying in July 2020, which is not happening, is not going to happen. I'm still seeing desperate sellers in the $750K-$1M market who: read above. The under $750K market in the DC metro area is very sporadic. Some parts sell well (think Silver Spring, Burke etc) but they are very localized. Other parts (think tear downs in Arlington) just sit there until they drop the price to where it is economically feasible for a developer. I'm seeing "well priced" properties still move quickly, but there is no frenzy anymore. What people don't realize is that a lot of the frenzy was NOT due to inflation, lumber prices rising (they are off 40% from their highs) and what not. That was a "transitory" (in JPOW's words) situation, which did turn out to be true. The frenzy was due to migration patterns, where a lot of people who can now WFH (and other reasons) changed their geographies and brought their incomes with them. This is why NY, NJ, IL, CT, MA, MD, DC are all stagnating, and prices rose in other parts of the country (FL, TX, NC, SC, VA and several other low COL states). But...that surge is over. Whoever needed to move, has moved. Now, we just have delusional/desperate sellers trying to make money. Housing (residential real estate) CANNOT go up too much and will ALWAYS correct to the median, unless incomes rise proportionately. And that's not happening and may never happen. |
Anonymous
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"Moron" realtor again.
This is snapshot from earlier today, covering the ENTIRE MRIS area. There were 420 price drops at the time, and the majority were < 1M priced properties. 
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Anonymous
Then this board should be filled with deliriously happy buyers who've finally been able to snag their dream home at a reasonable price, with very little negotiation. Looking for that thread now. Looking... looking... |
Anonymous
This comment was not helpful because the poster said the prices are increasing |
Anonymous
| Takoma Park and close-in Silver Spring are still hot. |
Anonymous
Yup, many contingencies in Silver Spring now too. The fomo people have dried up. Now the people who were patient (and likely 1st time buyers) are able to come out and start buying in a normal market. As always, manias always end. |
Anonymous
Nope, not going to happen. You only see lots of chatter on the interwebs, when things are on the extreme ends of the bell curve. Either too high or too low. In "normal" times, people go out, buy a house, and worry more about decor, furniture etc than coming to a forum to say "Hey, I just bought a house!". |
Anonymous
This is a great point. I do think there is a slowdown in the works but I think it is really about reigning in this positive feedback loop of pricing 5% above recent comps. I would however caution that there is a lot of seasonality to real estate and leading into the 4th of July is never typically a time when you see strong demand from buyers. I don't think it can be discounted that there is a large cohort (Millennials) that are looking to move from being renters to buyers while a lot of the existing stock is occupied by owners who are not interested in selling (Boomers). So we are starting what is likely a secular trend of strong SFH demand for the next decade, as well as a general shift from urban living to close in suburban living. |
Anonymous
"there is a large cohort (Millennials) that are looking to move from being renters to buyers" - There always is, always will be, and it's just not millennials. "while a lot of the existing stock is occupied by owners who are not interested in selling (Boomers)" - There always is, always will be, and it's just not "Boomers". There is ALWAYS a demand/supply ratio in ANY market, be it real estate, equities, bonds etc etc. It has nothing to do with age. It has to do with "is this asset priced well?". EVERYTHING is an asset, anybody who tells you otherwise, is lying/is clueless/has an agenda. Other than "consumables", people buy "assets", whether it be a classic car, vintage wine, houses, boats etc etc. Nobody is buying any of those things with "OMG, if I don't buy now, I'll never be able to buy one of these again!". That's just FOMO and while it may happen now and then (and we're seeing that in residential real estate right now, while commercial real estate is getting clobbered), it settles down. FOMO by it's very nature doesn't last too long, human psychology, the attention span cannot last a decade. I can't predict/tell where residential real estate will be in 10/20/30 years. What I can do is make an educated assessment of the financial, political, taxation landscape, as it applies to real estate. Ask yourself this. If "low interest rates" are THAT enticing, why is commercial real estate cratering?? Aren't "small businesses" the bedrock of our country? If that's true, and money is so easy and cheap to borrow, why are these (or new) small businesses not gobbling up cheap commercial real estate (and it IS cheap)?? The answer is a lot more complicated and will take a dissertation to explain. Take a look at Europe or Japan. If our "political" leanings are more socialist/liberal/call it whatever, well, that's what Europe is. They can't give away real estate to save their lives. Japanese real estate has stayed stagnant for over two decades. Why do you think "America" is any different? Once you ponder these things, you realize it IS bubblicious and unsustainable. Whether that will lead to _______ remains to be seen. |
Anonymous
I've been following the market very closely and this is pretty accurate of what I've seen. I think the people are failing to realize that the turn key ready homes and good location new builds have always and will always command a premium over others. They focus on those houses going over list so much that they overlook the inventory that's sitting on the market for weeks now. Only time will tell where real estate will go but I do not think it's up from here. |
Anonymous
If the DC area is “stagnating” because people who can WFH are relocating, then why was the market so crazy here the past year? Wouldn’t all the people leaving have made the market go down? I would instead guess that anyone who relocated out of here to somewhere cheaper are the ones who were already on the cusp of priced out before the pandemic and this was a tipping point. A lot of them were likely to leave in the next few years anyway. I don’t think this area has been stagnant at all. Now can I believe there will be a slow down here? Sure. I think the price drops reflect that sellers are trying to profit off the crazy late 2020/spring 2021 comps and that people aren’t necessarily willing to pay that anymore. Prices may settle somewhat closer to pre-COVID, but I don’t think that is a bubble popping. More just the end of a spike. I bought my house for 900k in 2019 and it would sell for closer to 1.1mil based on COVID comps. I could see it going back down some, but at this point if I listed my house for $999k there would be multiple bidders still. COVID prices will eventually be a blip, but you can’t call it a bubble just because a short spike ends and comes back to “normal.” Now if we see houses going for 2013 prices, I will call that a bubble popping. |
Anonymous
I just read t he post you replied to and then I read yours. It's clear you didn't read the entire post. That person was saying that it's not a buyers market. Point being, where are all the posts about people finding easy to purchase houses for low prices? All we see are complaints about competition, removal of contingencies, and sky high prices. I agree with the person you replied to, where are all the posts about the buyer's market? |
Anonymous
If people are buying homes with ease, they wouldn't be posting on real estate threads. It's likely the people here are competing desirable neighborhoods since everyone here pretty much only talks about arlington and bethesda. |
Anonymous
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I think that the sellers who want to make a quick buck are out of luck.
A dud will always be a dud. The houses that I see moving are almost perfect dream homes under a million. I see more homes that need a ton of work staying on the market longer. But I also think that this area is going to continuously have demand. People are still looking. They just don’t want to have to add a wing or do a major remodel unless the ROI is worth it. |