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Anthony: Are you feeling like your year is not starting off the way it should have? Are you feeling way slower than normal for April 1st, feeling down about it aggravated, frustrated? Well, you’re not alone. Anthony Lamacchia here with Crushing It In Real Estate just left the gym, and heading back to my car. I was thinking about conversations I’ve had with several realtors over the last week. Been more than the weeks prior. A lot of you are aggravated, a lot of you are frustrated, and a lot of you are wondering what in the hell is going on? Why is it slower? I will tell you my take on it.
First of all, you’re not alone. It’s not just you. This is a nationwide thing. Sales of homes listed are down. When I say listed actually posted to be put on the market. Pendings are down and solds are down. Now we’re going to go through this somewhat confusing period where you’re going to start to see the media talk about home sales are down, home sales are down. The average person gets confused and thinks, “Prices are down.” No. Prices aren’t down, prices aren’t anywhere near coming down.
When you don’t have nearly enough homes for sale you’re not going to have prices coming down, but we’re in this interesting spot. Now I’ll tell you this, much of what I see is similar to what I tend to see at the end of February. People are like, “Have had it with winter.” They can’t wait till March is here. They just want to list homes. They want to get homes in the market, and they’re itching for it and dying for it. Well, here we are a month later and everybody feels all those feelings, but worse, because it’s a month later and winter has been longer.
There’s no denying that this has been a long winter, and there’s several reasons for it. I think Omicron definitely had an impact. More people held back on listing their homes early in the winter. A single realtor here or there may hear that and go, “No, really? Yes. Look at MLS. This isn’t Anthony’s theory, this is me– At least that’s not. This is me citing statistics in multiple states and regions and across the country. We’re at about 870,000 homes on the market right now across the country because less people listed.
Now that people are finally starting to list, they’re getting eaten up very quickly. I’ve talked to you all about the Pac-man theory many, many times the old game of Pac-man where the homes are getting eaten up, and in this case, they’re getting eaten up as fast as they’re getting listed, and that can be quite frustrating, but for the most part, I feel very confident that this will still be a huge year. There’ll be a tremendous amount of home sales, but there’s no denying that things got delayed a month.
Can we make up that ground before the end of the year? Can we make up that ground by September when school’s back in session or down south school’s back in session in August? I’m not sure I’m up in the air on that. Ask me in a month and I will tell you what I think of that. I’m just not sure yet if we can make up that ground. I think it’s possible the market could go on a run and we could see a ton of homes getting listed, and if a ton get listed, a ton are going to go pending and we could make up some ground.
For example, in Massachusetts, we’re down by about 13% of homes listed. Down south in Florida it’s like 6 or 8% down for homes listed. Remember, that’s compared to last year and last year was even lower compared to the year before in 2020 prior to the pandemic. It’s just an odd period that we’re in, but folks, the market’s been on a complete run for what? 22 months ever since COVID hit. You can’t expect it to just keep up at that pace. There’s Brandon Farrell, our photographer, and you know what he’s thinking right now? Brandon say, good morning.
Anthony: There’s two things Brandon’s thinking, “Anthony, you look like shit.” Brandon, you’re right about that. That’s one, but Brandon is also thinking, “Why the hell don’t we have a real camera on you instead of this selfie mode.” Brandon knows I just like to keep a real once in a while. I like to grab the phone and just talk to everybody. I want everyone to keep that in mind, that the market has been red hot. It’s been on fire, and in December, it’s slowed definitely a lot, because of Omicron, but for the most part, things have been raging for about 22 months, maybe 21 depending on what area you’re in, and now sellers pulled back a little.
We got a war going on in the Ukraine. There’s things going on. It makes people hesitate, but here’s the thing about real estate, and this is when I make you feel better. If you’re about to shut it off, keep it on one more minute. Real estate never sleeps long-term. It goes through lulls here and there, but homes are always selling. People always have to buy, people always have to sell. Yes, we’re undoubtedly unquestionably. You can see it in the data. We’re seeing a slowdown in homes listed which is resulting in a slowdown in pendings, resulting in a slowdown in home sales that hasn’t totally hit the media yet, but you watch in the next two months you’re going to hear a lot about less home sales.
It’s not going to keep up. It can’t stay like this. It can’t stay in this odd period where things are essentially log-jammed. Every time I’ve seen a slow down on this business that lasted three or four weeks and it kept going, and it got back on track. You’re going to see things really pick up here in the next month, in the next two months. Again, whether or not we can make up for that time, ask me in a month, but there’s no doubt. It’s April 1st, things are really picking up. A lot of homes have been listed.
Sorry. It got paused there, because of reception, but I shut off the Wi-Fi. Many of you that have been feeling like, “Good God, what is going on?” You’re going to start to feel better in the weeks to come except I want you to think about this. Right now it’s essentially like the end of February first week of March. Everyone’s dying for listings to come on. The reason it feels worse is it’s a month late. It’s essentially a month late with things kicking in, but it’s going to happen. It’s going to get very busy. Listen to the geese.
The geese are excited. They are very excited. They’re dying for the market to kick off. Have no fear. People always need to buy. People always need to sell. Yes, it’s been slower, but it’s going to pick up big time, and we’ll see if we can make up for the lost ground, but that’s my message today on April 1st. Yes, it’s April Fools’ Day, but I’m not fooling in this. All right. Gina, good morning. Good friend down in Connecticut. Have a good day.