The housing market has really been in an upheaval over the last year. The press is going on and on about a housing crisis. There language is very dramatic, as I imagine it must be to sell papers. They use words like crisis, upheaval and crash. They talk about housing bubbles bursting and price declining and panic in the streets. It's enough for me to consider being nervous if it weren't for the facts.
The truth of it is there are three times the inventory of listings in Louisville compared to what most of us have been used to in the past. We can see that by all the for sale signs in our neighborhood. It seems like they are everywhere and sit on the market forever. It is as you may have heard. It's a buyers market.
With three times the inventory, a home buyer can get downright spoiled with all the choices they have out there. Since the inventory sits, they take their time putting an offer on a property. They can. There was a day gone by when we needed to get that offer in or we would lose the house. Not so much today. To compound the problem, they also have a house to sell. So they get excited, put an offer on a house only to lose it because they can't perform. Ouch.
Most Realtors and homeowners are hurt and feel victimized by the current market and don't know what to do about it.
My wife Lynn and I understand what kind of market this is and we love it. As the saying goes, "for every cloud there is a silver lining." For every obstacle, there is an opportunity. This market is no exception. Let's look at the numbers again.
Even though there is three times the inventory than we are used to more than a year ago, the amount of homes that sold this year are higher than last year. So, even though the inventory is enormous, there are plenty of homes selling. In fact, there are more. Looking at the inventory, the best third is selling. The best third are created typically by excellent real estate agents.
Our team has adopted a strategy to get a listing ready for the market to get the most amount of money for the seller in the least amount of time. We average eight home sales a month and are actually selling faster and getting more money for our customers this year than we did last year.
We adopt a strategy for selling the clients house based on the current market. Lynn is a listing expert. One reason Lynn is an expert in residential home sales is because she is specialist in pricing the home. Armed with data and over 12 years of high volumed experience she prices the home and stages the home for sale with resources to present the home to the market in it's most favorable light.
Once an offer comes to the table. Lynn negotiates the offer. We won't recommend accepting contingency contracts. Why would we accept a contract contingent upon the sale of a buyers house selling? Extraneous circumstances aside, a contingency contract essentially takes the sellers house off the market or out of the hands of a legitimate buyer to get every one's hopes up only to crash when the buyer can't perform on the contract because their house can't sell. There are plenty of contracts that are acceptable to our sellers besides contingencies that we are more than willing to work with. We will even suggest a contract that will work best for the buyers so they get a win win deal.
Even in a buyers market plenty of homes are being sold. It may mean you need to work harder. It may mean you have to choose your real estate agent more carefully. You may be asking them tougher questions and ultimately hiring an agent with more experience. But the market does not dictate our level of success. All it does is dictates our strategies. If, on our way to work, we find it's raining, we don't go home and quit and play the victim. We grab our umbrellas, even if we still get a little wet. Our listings sell much faster than the average listing in Louisville. Our goal is nothing less than getting the most amount of money in the least amount of time for our clients.
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