My forecast for home sales in 2022: continued price appreciation, critically low supply of homes for sale, increasing demand, multiple offers, minimal days on the market, homes selling over list price. [...]
What you need to know … What you should ask your REALTOR®
Changes effective as of November 1, 2021
Until 2009 I practiced real estate law in the State of Rhode Island and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Amongst my clients was the Rhode Island Association of REALTORS® (“RIAR”). As Legal Counsel I drafted, prepared the contracts, listing agreements, all the forms used by [...]
Sarasota County
Normalizing home sales: the prescription.
Real estate appreciation is driven by a confluence of factors: supply and demand, demographics, low mortgage rates, location, and property type. In an ideal market, home appreciation and inflation should bare a reasonable nexus. It is a generally accepted industry standard [...]
Interest rates are going up … and that’s a good thing.
The Federal Reserve has signaled a change in its guidance. It is likely to taper bond-buying and move up its timetable for raising rates. I have never accepted the Federal Reserve’s position that inflation is “transitory”. For months I have advanced on these pages [...]
The month of September, fall is in the air, Labor Day, kids go back to school, snowbirds making plans, we begin to assess, plan for the year ahead. We tend to plan now so that we are settled in for the [...]
“Should I stay or should I go?” The Clash, 1981
What should you be doing right now? If you are or have been considering selling your home, prices have never been higher. Even if your home is tired or has deferred maintenance, this is the time to move and sell. Many buyers are prepared to take on a project because they have few [...]
The Fed is buying the stock market and housing market to prop up the economy. Housing doesn’t need it. On this tract, home values will continue to appreciate at unhealthy levels. You may ask, “Why is this a bad thing, my home’s value is going up”? Because it will get to the point where the American Dream of home ownership [...]
AN INCREASE IN MORTGAGE RATES WOULD BE A GOOD THING.
Comparing this past month to May of 2020 is not useful. 2020 was an anomaly. However, comparing May 2021 to May 2019 is quite telling. Last month the median sold price of single-family homes and condos rose approximately 30% from May 2019. See tables [...]
No Housing Bubble
Exacerbated by a labor shortage and rapidly increasing cost of building materials, builders in new communities from Wellen Park to Lakewood Ranch are releasing lots in small numbers and requiring sealed bids from homebuyers without knowing what the final building cost will be. It pushes frustrated new homebuyers to turn [...]
As I have postulated in prior commentaries, the combination of demographics (Baby Boomers, Gen X and Millennials), historically low interest rates, the hyperbolic reaction from buyers due to pent up demand from the lockdown, and the paucity of sellers uncomfortable listing their homes due to mixed messaging, has led to home price [...]
