Scott at Boston.com comes up withe some great posts and I have posted another one below. Scott talks about a Redfin survey that finds only 46% of buyers surveyed think it is a good time for house hunting. This is apparent as well in all anecdotal information from the field specifically in downtown Boston. The issue remains lack of good available inventory and the impact that this will have in the “nascent real estate recovery. Jon
So says Redfin in a troubling new survey of buyers in 19 major metro markets across the country, including Boston.
Fewer than half the buyers out there – 46 percent – actually believe it is a good time to be house hunting, according to the online brokerage firm.
That’s a big shift from the first quarter, when hopes for deals and bargains was much higher among buyers as the spring sales season approached. Back then, 56 percent said it was good time to buy, Redfin notes.
However, probably the most dramatic change is in buyers’ expectations of where home prices are headed. The number of buyers who believe home prices are headed up has nearly doubled, to 61 percent from 32 percent in the first quarter.
So what’s made home buyers so glum?
Well bidding wars haven’t helped, with seven out of 10 buyers reporting they had encountered multiple bids on at least one offer, according to Redfin.
In fact, 31 percent of those surveyed said they would back off if confronted with another bidding war, up from 28 percent this spring.
Of course, at the root of the problem is a falling supply of homes for sale, a phenomenon that has endangered the nascent real estate recovery both here in Greater Boston and across the country.
Fewer choices have meant more bidding wars, rising prices and increasingly grumpy buyers. (The Redfin survey is based on the responses of 829 buyers during the week of Aug. 16-22.)
And the stumbling economy – and all those storm clouds over Europe’s rickety banking system – hasn’t helped cheer buyers up either.
The percentage of buyers worried about the economy rose to 27 percent from 20
percent in the first quarter.
We’ll just have to wait and see what the fall selling season brings, I guess.