I attended a meeting at the Board this afternoon. Prior to the start of the meeting, a number of us were chatting about business … as Realtors® always do. The first thing that was noticeable was how upbeat and smiling everyone was. The “down-in-the-dump” faces that were prevalent last fall were gone.
- People were smiling, joking, and saying how busy they were. How the phones were ringing with buyers FINALLY deciding that NOW really was a good time to buy.
- Those buyers who qualify for the $8000 First Time Buyer Tax Credit are deciding this deal, along with the low interest rates and prices, is just too good to pass up. As they buy homes, that allows those sellers to move-up to buy their next home – at a good price and good interest rate.
- My office has a calendar where we post upcoming closings so the processor can pull the files in preparation. The calendar has lots of closings on it for March. That’s a good sign.
- Open houses are being well attended, depending on the location. The best sign is that the buyer guests seem to be serious buyers, not just looking or thinking about it.
- We also talked about how low the inventories were in certain areas … about half the number of homes for sale that are usually available in those areas. Naturally, some of these areas are seeing new listings go into contract rather quickly because of the short supply.
- Traffic to web sites is up. Real Living just reported to us how much the traffic has increased for viewings on our listings. I’m seeing the same type of increase on my own listings on Realtor.com.
Several of the agents said they were expecting this to be a great year based on the start so far. As I said a couple days ago, if you’re thinking of buying and are in a position to, you might not want to sit on the fence any longer.
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