Should I buy or Should I sell? Kind of sounds like some song I heard once. More and more it seems like buyer’s are afraid to buy and seller’s are unwilling to sell. The million dollar question is…who will when the battle? 2006 is almost over and it has been quite a ride. Gone are the days when people would call and buy properties site unseen, pay asking price, and pay for closing costs. Nothing mattered except they wanted to own a piece of this beautiful coast.
How times have changed, people call now and want to look at dozens of homes and still can’t find what they want or are just waiting to see if prices will go down more. The fact is, some very astute buyer’s have purchased trophy properties this year. What’s a trophy? It’s a lot of things….a culdesac home in a prestigious neighborhood, a corner unit a condominium, the rare bayfront lot with elevation and deep water, or the immaculate 4 bedroom near your favorite school.
Whatever, your definition, there have been many sell. As seller’s became nervous, they didn’t take time or care to understand why their property might be special. They just said sell! Just as the buyer’s before them. Both groups acted irrationally at different times. A lot of folks expected that we would transition from a seller’s market to a normal market. That didn’t happen and never does when an asset class experiences tremendous appreciation like real estate has over the past few years. You go straight from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Once the irrationality from both parties is gone, you have a “normal” market. As the days pass, it seems that we are getting closer and closer to that.
