Is the Gap Widening Between Listings and Sales?

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Gap Widening More Listings Fewer Closings

[00:00:00] Well, good morning. Real estate fans Alice Lema, broker John Scott in beautiful Southern Oregon with another edition of the weekly podcast. Jay, we're gonna talk about the widening gap between how many listings we have on the market and how many closings. We're gonna talk numbers today, Oregon specific.

Before we get to that, wanna give you quick second too give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel, send us some questions, some comments. You can also contact me personally, privately 541-301-7980.

So onto the podcast what's happening with our market. The gap is widening. So this week we ran the numbers for this week 2022, which is now versus this week, last year. And we got some interesting responses. So Jackson county number of active listings is up 63% from this time last year. But the closings in Jackson county this week compared to this week, last year are down 18%. So almost 20% down in closings and up 63% in Jackson county. [00:01:00] Now maybe that's summer. I don't know, but it's not only that the listings are more listings are coming on the market is they're not selling. And here, I just proved it to you.

And Josephine county, you know, is not much better. Josephine county number of listings active this week compared to last year is 57% increase. And they're actually down more in closings. They're down 37%. So again, these are micro motions we're watching this week to week now, mostly because I am super curious and I get tired of waiting for all these other people to send out numbers. So I want to start looking at this more deeply right now, just so we can kind of get ready to see what's gonna happen next.

And we do know the feds are coming with another interest rate increase. They're talking about a whole nother point, just a reminder, 5.5%, 5.8% is where we're at right now in interest rates for owner occupied. That's not investor, investors pay more, but check it out. They do [00:02:00] it at whole point up, that's 6.5 to 6.8 for owner occupied, and then investors pay a whole nother point on top of that. So that could be in the sevens. What's that gonna do to our rental market, which is already struggling, but we'll watch, we'll watch and see.

And quite frankly, the feds can change their mind without telling us. They do that all the time. Or they'll just give us a little bit of notice and go, oh, well changed our mind. So, but let's plan on it happening and build it into the model. So seller, I can't say it enough. I've had so many people tell me this week, they lost their escrow. The sellers were overnegotiating after they had a buyer. Don't do that, you know, unless you're speculation selling, if you really need to change this address into something else.

I don't, I don't recommend screwing around. It's not like it was six months ago. It's not like it was a year ago. There's still a lot of that mindset out there. And sellers, sellers are like the last to come [00:03:00] to the table when the market changes.

Buyers seem to be more spot on. They seem to be understanding the dynamics and they're not putting up with bullying or pressure. They're just either not writing the offers. They're not doing counters. We're seeing a ton of that now. Buyers are writing really good offers the seller isn't taking it. They're countering even just a little bit. We had a lot of situations the last two weeks the buyers just said, no, I'm gonna go find something.

And they did and now the sell and those properties are still on the market. So it's, it's an interesting time, but this is what it's like transitioning out of a seller market into a buyer's market or into a neutral market. It's yet to be seen if it's gonna become a buyer's market. That's the only reason I'm saying it that way.

So but it's fascinating. And at the end of the day, I have to remind you guys, we all still need a place to live. A lot of us still want a different house or another house or something, or we wanna sell something cuz we're tired of that house. So with all that in mind, don't let your [00:04:00] ego and emotion get in the way of you doing your real estate business so that you can have your life be more the way you want it.

Okay. Side, side note, the COVID numbers are going up and then they've got the monkeypox thing. I don't know what anybody's gonna do about all that, but if you've been thinking about moving, because it makes your life better, I say, go ahead and do it. Just run the numbers, you know, make reasonable offers if you're buying. Except reasonable offers if you're selling and just kind of get it done because this volatility doesn't help you in your life.

And even investors when they get their eye on their next property, they don't really wanna mess around. They're not looking to steal it. They want that asset in their portfolio so they can do what they do best, which is make money. Hopefully our investors are making money. So with that in mind, just a word of caution, whether you're buying or selling be careful about over negotiating because the whole idea is to get your deal done.

And having said that, I wanna [00:05:00] say congratulations to Mary. Miss Mary moved out today and she's in her new place. She's so happy. She was one smart seller. She did her home inspection up front. She priced it reasonably at the time and it was not high like it could have been six months ago. She still ended up getting multiple offers. It was only two. It would, you know, like before it would've been five, but Mary got two. She picked the best one. She's out the door. Bless her heart. She had the place cleaned. Thank you, Mary. That was wonderful. We also wanna welcome a new buyer, another Mary who moved outta state to be here with friends and family. And she wrote a good offer. She got a nice house. She's not fussing around. She didn't overnegotiate and now she's gonna be closing and moving in here to her Oregon home shortly.

So again, The word for the week is moderate. Keep your negotiations moderate, be realistic so that you can get your stuff done, cuz that's really what counts. And welcome [00:06:00] Mary to Oregon. And congratulations Mary on selling and moving on. Okay.

So send me your questions and comments. If you need some help this weekend with your real estate. Let me know. I love doing listings, buyers, downsizers, upsizes, riverfront, tons of investment. Great. Great fun with all that stuff and we get it done. So gimme a call, gimme a text 541-301-7980. And have a beautiful weekend hug those you love. See you next week. Bye now.