How You Can Take Advantage of the Real Estate Market as Buyer

Hello Hampton Roads,

The real estate market over the past couple of years, and especially during the pandemic, has favored sellers and still does, but there is a silver lining for home buyers who can learn to work with the market. Before we get into the details, let's take a look and the reasons why the market has been favoring sellers not just in Hampton Roads but throughout the country.  During the GFC (Great financial Crisis) home building fell off a cliff and is still playing catch up to recover.  According to a report by Freddie Mac, the US is short 3.8 million homes--simply put, not enough starter homes were being built.  When you take that already existing shortage and combine it with Covid-19,  builders couldn't meet demand due to supply shortages and not having enough people to work.  Furthermore, home sellers who may have wanted to sell held off.  This further took more homes off the market and worsened the inventory crunch.  Demand plus limited inventory caused rising home prices. 

Being a home buyer in this market can lead to a lot of frustration and disappointment if you aren't prepared and don't know what to expect.  However, the more you know about the market, the better able you will be to take advantage of it, and right now the market is offering you such an opporturnity. 



Take Advantage of Seasonality

The seasonality of real estate favors buyers.  According to Realtor.com, nationally the best time to buy a house is the first week of October and in our metro area (Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News) the best time to buy is during November 7th-13th.  As a buyer, a great time to buy is at the end of summer through January just before the spring market starts heating up. Sellers whose homes have been on the market and didn't sell over the summer are more likely to bargain and offer price reductions.  Homes still sell but at a less frenetic pace, and there is also less competition with fewer buyers looking over the fall and winter months. 

Taking a look at the  latest stats from our local MLS, recently published for September 2021, we see that we are still in a seller's market, but median DOM (Days on Market) is increasing as well as month's supply of inventory.


If you're looking to buy, don't miss this opporutnity to take advantage of market seasonality while it's here.  Remember the rising home prices mentioned earlier?  That's still happending and according to a Goldman Sach's report home prices are expected to increase another 16% by 2022.  If you need to buy a home, it's better to do so while the market is softer with less competition, and because prices are still expected to rise
 you may save money by purchasing sooner.  


Thanks for Reading,






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