Our market is experiencing a very slow summer in comparison to the past two years. The number of sales in June and July in all categories were way below previous years as you can see on the stats page of HomesInEstes.com
So where did all the buyers go?
I don’t think they went anywhere at all. If you have driven downtown Estes Park lately, you’ll see that there isn’t much of a decrease in the number of people in town. The difference is in the mindset of these people coming to town.
I have a large number of buyers who are just “waiting” to see what the stock market does or to see when the national real estate market rebounds. According to conversations with other local realtors, just about everyone has a few buyers just sitting around waiting for the “perfect” property to come up. A lot of these potential buyers have the mindset that since property values are dropping back home, Estes Park will probably do the same.
On the flip side, people who are selling their homes are extremely reluctant to take low offers or reduce their prices because they know that eventually prices will appreciate again. They have no reason to sell at a discounted price since the neighbor property sold last year for a premium. They might as well wait it out and see The trick is how long are they willing to wait?
So how do we get the buyers off the fence?
The easiest and quickest way to find a buyer is to price your property correctly to start with. If you don’t get enough showings or you get a lot of showings and no offers, its probably time to adjust your price. One way that is extremely effective is to drop your price every 30 days until it sells.
At the current rate at which property is being sold, we have about 18-24 months of available inventory (also called Absorption Rate). That’s a lot of inventory. In order for your property to be noticed, the potential buyer has to decide that your property is the best value before they will make an offer. With 24 months of inventory as your competition, your home has to be the best value for the money or it will sit “on the shelf” with the rest of the listings.
The only way to continue the Estes Park real estate market’s impressive growth in property values is for more buyers and sellers to come together on price. My opinion is that the ball is in the seller’s court. They hold the key to stimulating this market once again.
