Three Reasons Why So Oregon Will Get More Listings

Watch Market Update Video Below. Transcript of Video is posted after. 

Transcript of Video - Three Reasons Why Southern Oregon Will Get More Listings.

Good afternoon, real estate fans Alice Lema  here again broker John L. Scott Southern, Oregon. Just wanting to give you our market update here. We are second week February 1st week of February 20 21 feels like the second week and it's been such an interesting short little start to our year here and we're talking about why the shortage of houses in southern Oregon shortage of houses for sale is going to go away. and it's not just me saying that.

There's actually several other, you know, bigger entities, professional economists, the National Association of Realtors and  some of the management at John L Scott. They're all kind of looking out into their crystal balls and saying okay last year, we had a lot of sellers did not go on the market that year. We have our regular sellers ready to go on the market. So now we have two years of back inventory ready to come on the market, plus with all the world events, and I'm not being negative.  Because I'm not like that but with everything going on people are nervous and I know this because they tell me every single day. So we have a lot of people leaving our area to go to other places. We have people coming from other places to come here. We have people that are here that are just moving to a different kind of scenario, you know, whatever their life dictates that they need to do next.

So, yes, we have an extreme shortage of houses. If you're buying now, please just know that that's not going to last very much longer in my opinion and in the opinion of some other people that are you know, very financially wise in these matters. And here's the three reasons, why. One is our prices went up so fast, so high in just 10 months.

And it was to artificially driven spikes. One was the covid and one was the fires. So we had this extreme run up really quick, unforeseen, unpredicted and now we're kind of leveling off as more houses come on the market. People have a lot of profit. So one of the things that happens when people have a lot of equity is they start to decide to sell so they can capture that equity. And either take it to the next step of their life, or they just put it in their pocket like some of our friends in Central Point that we know and love are just hidden in their fifth wheel and they're going on the road and just going to enjoy a couple years of traveling with all that money in their pockets. So yay for them. So one reason people are going start putting houses on the market is because they have so much equity, so much profit. So profit taking is the second reason. The vaccine, the vaccine is here.

People are getting it. Even people here in Southern Oregon are getting vaccinated and that's creating a little bit of calm and order in the Housing Industry. And people can feel safe putting their house on the market. They can feel safe having people come in and look at their home. We had amazing protocols through the, the shutdown. So please do not misunderstand. We have been safe all along. And we actually sold a record number of homes during this shutdown because everybody was nervous. And wanted to make these life changes because they just didn't know what was going on. So just not having the crisis in our face means that things are going to come down a little bit. So reason number two is the vaccine.

And reason number three, record low interest rates. And even though I don't really like trusting the feds timelines about interest rates, they continue to say they're going to be low for a while.

For me, low in my opinion is anything under 5% because I don't know a lot of us older people, we remember, remember 9 to 11 percent like when we bought our first homes in the 80s and 90s. So we have some VA programs closing at 1.9% interest. We've got regular conventional and FHA mortgages closing at choose like 2.7%, 2.9%. And then we have non-owner occupied investment loans at 3.2% or 3.5%.  Who would have thought you could buy, you could buy a multi-family or a property and not live there and have three point something percent interest anyway, so those are the three reasons that myself and some other people think that we're about to have a backlog of sellers all come on the market at the same time.

And John. L Scott our managing broker is Jim Remley and he also believes that this is something that's going to happen in the next few months and carry on into 20 and  21. And he calls it the dinner bell is about to ring. And it's just kind of a funny, funny image, but it is like somebody's ringing the dinner bell and it's like, oh it's okay. Come on, and so everybody's going to put their house on the market at the same time.

 So a couple of quick suggestions if you're a buyer, keep out there looking because there's stuff coming on the market every day. And one of the fun things I noticed just this week is we have some number of houses that are move-in-ready that are under $250,000 now, they only have one bathroom and they are cottage style, but they're cute, are move in  and they don't stink. I was just really pleased to see that now they're getting scooped up kind of fast, but that's okay. There's going to be more coming.

So if you're buying, still stay out there when you find the price, find the home, go ahead and write your offers. But also know if for some reason you don't get it, there should be more coming down the pike. If you're selling you've got a choice to make, because now it's early February. We're still technically in a shortage. So if you can get your property on the MLS, in like two to four weeks, I think you'll still catch that kind of, that crescendo as we transform the seller's market into a stabilizing market.

 We might even see, later this year some neighborhoods go down a little bit. But the point is we're not going to keep going up is my prediction. And in fact, even though last year we had double-digit appreciation unexpectedly. I just don't see that happening this year. I see it flattening out. Going up maybe, some neighborhoods going up in my estimation 3% to 7%. Just kind of moderate sustainable stabilizing. We may have some some neighborhoods go down a little bit if they get too many houses on the market at the same time and they don't sell.

 And sometimes reason it doesn't sell is sellers think oh, it went up 15 percent last year. I'm going to add another 15% Don't do that. Do not do that!  If you do that, you'll just languish out there. Nobody will see your house, or write  really low offers. Or worse some will write you an offer you'll take it.  And then it won't appraise, and that's, that's a real sticky wicket. So just keep in mind if you're selling. I feel that if you could get your house on the market in the next 30 days, you'll do pretty well because you still have a lot of starving buyers out there.

 But as we start going into spring and summer, I just think it's going to be a more balanced market.  The positive to that is if you're selling your house to move to another, you're going to have more choices. So as Jim and I really say, that's reason number four.  As soon as people see that there's something to buy, they will sell as well. Selling begets selling. So very interesting transition coming from post Corona. We shouldn't say post Corona because it's not over. And it we may have the effects for quite a while. But at least as we start to open up again, and we get a little more used to this new way of buying and selling houses during a pandemic wearing masks having gloves, you know, wiping everything down, only showing houses to people that are qualified to buy.

 There's no more recreational house hunting. You do not bring your neighbors and your girlfriend your boyfriend. You don't bring all these people to come with you. It is no longer a social activity only the people that are on contracts supposed to go into a house and only after being vetted financially and all that. So I see a lot of is protocol still staying in place just because it's good safety and it makes good sense for everybody. So those are the three, and actually have a bonus for reasons that we think that the prices are going to stabilize there  at least not going to be going up so fast and we're going to see a lot more choices in southern Oregon housing. It's because there's profit so people will sell, the interest rates are really low. So people will sell and the vaccine is helping to create some safety, some real bona fide safety.

 So that people especially if they're immune compromised and they wanted to make some kind of a life change. A lot of those folks held off. A lot of the elderly held off until the health situation stabilized which it has now or is about to. So, yeah, so that's really good and then selling begets selling as soon as people see their neighbor got $340,000 for their house then they might want sell or you know, they can see the house. They've always drooled It's like oh, it came on the market. So let's put our house on the market. So anyway, that is my prediction. I think the low inventory is just about over. So if you want to talk about this or you need some consulting about what direction to go next, you can call, you can text my numbers (541)301-7980  that's (541)301-7980 

 You can just also Google Alice Lema. My last name is Lema so you can go to my website. I've got a lot of great listings. We've got quite a lot of information about our Valley and communities and neighborhoods and such and selling in general. So let me know how I can help. Otherwise, I will talk to you again next week have a beautiful Southern Oregon day. This is Alice Lema, Broker, John L  Scott, saying see you later.