This time last year the real estate clock struck 12....
...since then, interest rates have climbed, and prices have fallen.
Sales volumes have also dropped but each month around 100 buyers in Lower Hutt have been taking advantage of the new prices.
Some homes still sell quickly, others don’t. Take a property in Kings Crescent for example. It had been on the market for 8 months before one of our team then listed it and sold it the next day.
Perhaps other buyers had been distracted by the online appraisal sites, one of those put this home’s estimated value at $220,000 over the price it sold for.
Just 5 doors down from that property, we sold a home after 2 weeks for $1.7M. The buyers then sold their property which they bought a year earlier, for a $200k loss, but as they said, their new home would have cost at least that much more at the top of the market.
If you’ve noticed a lot of our sold signs around town, that’s because last month 45% of all sales were made by a Professionals agent. We always do better in tougher markets. As we say… “40 years prepared us for a market like this, experience matters” and we are grateful for the boldness our business owner John Ross shows when resourcing and equipping us in a retreating market.
Coming into Spring we have seen a lift in the number of buyers out looking, and they’re committing. This has come at a time when some sellers have given up and taken their home off the market.
The number of homes for sale in Lower Hutt peaked at 680 a couple of months back, we’re now at 530 and tracking down. If it carries on like this, there will be buyers who wished they’d jumped in while it was their market.
When you think of all the suburbs, styles, sizes and prices, there is a shortage of some homes. We certainly hope to see a lift in new listings this Spring, we need them.
