Bryan

Hello and welcome back to Change and the Market, your weekly look at the changing real estate market. I'm your host, Bryan, joined as always by the other host, Mr. Chris Masiello, our resident real estate expert.

Chris

Hey, Bryan, good to be with you. Good to be with everybody in our community.

Bryan

We're going to have a little bit of a shorter episode today, so we're just going to get right into it and knock it out. Chris, how has the market changed? What are we seeing? Where are things going?

Chris

So last week we talked about the fact that the markets are moving into a more consistent cycle because of the inventory. And of course that hasn't changed and we're moving more firmly into that environment of greater consistency, a smaller number of closed transactions—because of the construction of the inventory. However, sales prices are continuing to move up.

And when you get a more kind of normalized environment like what we're seeing, you're going to get—you know—your seasonality will continue to be a little more pronounced. So now, like in the last couple of days—Monday, Tuesday, these are just internal numbers—we booked 70 new purchase and sales agreements and then we took in about 30 new listings. The listings are a little bit light, but that activity I think is showing that we are moving into kind of a spring/summer market that has really kind of kicked off.

Typically there's like a spring market and there's a summer market. I think it's kind of just like merging in together now because the market directly reacts to the inventory. And you know, generally if I take a look at our backlog of sales that are that are due to close, we've got about 650 transactions in the whole footprint. That's a little light, but not too light, you know.

So again, I think we're moving into more consistency. And I think the other thing, though—if I'm a seller right now, there's still a premium in the market. Interest rates are going down, inflation's going down, and interest rates and inflation will track with each other. That will increase affordability and then there will continue to be a premium in the market.

So all in all—predictable, which feels kind of good to say because then you can kind of plan around it.

Bryan

Yeah, it definitely mirrors what we were talking about last week with kind of entering a new normal and finding some consistency in the market. And what we were going to talk about in our second segment here, is how you can kind of capitalize on that. So what what is your advice for people today?

Chris

You know, on one hand, you talk about consistency, right? And every circumstance has a strength and a weakness to it. So consistency has its strength because it allows you to plan and not have to work in frenetic or chaotic energy. The downside to consistency, though, is that consistency can lead to routine. Routine dulls the mind.

So we always have to be a little aware when we're moving into consistency and routine that a malaise doesn't set in that puts us in a kind of a … I guess dull would be a better way to say it. You know, not a really sharp mindset, and then because when we fall into that, then we lose sight of what opportunities might come about.

And I think as we're talking about, the housing market—but this will be true in life—we have to have routines. We have to have consistency, and at the same time, we can't have them to the extent that we don't... we become unaware of what's going on around us. So that's just kind of how it hit me this morning.

Bryan

Yeah. So it really does kind of—and it is interesting because when we talked about, you know, finding opportunity in routine and consistency; I was thinking that it does clash a little bit—not clash, but it just runs a little bit contrary to stuff that we've talked about previously, which is finding opportunity in change and in newness.

And so I think it is interesting trying to find that balance between using routine to plan and finding that opportunity in the newness, in the change. And I think what we've talked about recently—at least from my perspective, obviously, without having your knowledge—is that, like you said, I think the key element here is that you can plan with the routine and consistency that we have, but then still be looking for those opportunities in the change. Is that kind of what your advice is?

Chris

Yeah, exactly. Because while you're in routine and consistency, you have to scan for the opportunity. I think that's what happens, right? Like I said, routine dulls the mind and we have to be vigilant about not allowing it to dull the mind, and scan for the opportunities. Right? So if you were to take it in a real estate sense—if I'm a seller right now, now there's going to be a premium in the market. We're moving into a faster time of year. And you know, inventory is somewhere around 50-60% of what it was last year. That's the opportunity.

Bryan

Fantastic. Awesome. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Change and the Market, as we said, a little bit shorter, but we had some nice, succinct advice for you this week. As always, you can do us a favor by just following, liking, subscribing on whatever platform you're watching or listening to this show on, and then make sure you join us back here next week for another brand-new episode of Change and the Market.

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The Masiello Group is a second-generation family company that has been a trailblazer in New England real estate since 1966. With now more than 35 offices throughout northern New England, we're the largest residential real estate firm north of Boston to offer a complete suite of home services, including buying, selling, mortgage, title, insurance, relocation, and more.

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