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. Chris, how are you this fine morning?
Chris
Hey, Bryan. Good to be with you. Good to be with everybody in our community.
Bryan
Awesome. So you came today prepared. You have some articles to share with us. So it's going to be a little bit different. I mean, that's usually you kind of work—around articles usually—but let's get into it. What do you have to share with us today?
Chris
Full disclosure. So usually what I do is we do this video—we also send it out internally to our staff, of course, but with it comes a PowerPoint—with just what's going on recently. Articles and things like that from the past week, just so everybody can get a deeper dive. And as I was going through my research this week, I realized that a lot of the headlines of the articles were perfect talking points for what we're going to do today. So I'll just kind of shamelessly pull from those.
First of all, we've been talking about this—this is the new normal now: tighter inventory, different rates of appreciation, but still appreciating homes, and also kind of lower annual unit sales, because we really don't have the inventory. Anecdotally, for the first quarter, the New Hampshire Association of Realtors sales were down 20% year over year, but home appreciation was up three and a half percent.
Typically, that's like the odd fellow. Those don't live together. You know, that really is truly like economically, that's the odd couple. And so I think we are entering this new normal. And there are a couple of things that jumped out at me in some of the articles that we're looking at. First, 93 of the major housing markets in the United States all had price increases. Only seven of the major markets did not.
I think that speaks again to the lack of inventory and the pricing pressure that gets put on because of that. The other thing that really jumped out at me too, was that there's a continual drumbeat about interest rates declining and five-and-a-half percent seems to be the number that most people are pointing to—that once rates drop below five-and-a-half percent, that that is going to be kind of the bellwether for additional buyers to come back into the market.
Also, whatever kind of housing correction people had thought would be here is either running on fumes or it's over. We're seeing that now. I just got off a call with all our agents who are talking about the market and things are clearly turned back on and people are back in the marketplace, you know, regardless of the interest rates.
And I think if anybody was kind of waiting around for the market to crash, or for it to be a buyer's market or something like that—that is not going to happen. So really, right now is the time to start getting back into things if it makes sense for you economically, and if you're in that position—now's the time that you want to get back in.
Bryan
A thing that I thought was really interesting … I just thought of this and it's actually kind of up in your area … I saw a photo the other day on social media that was somebody—and I have no reason to believe it wasn't a real photo, but who knows? Obviously, take this with a grain of salt.
But it was a photo somebody posted of them house-shopping in New Jersey and they were at an open house. And the line for this open house was around the block. It was literally around the block. It was just very interesting. And everybody in the comments was talking about how the inventory is so low right now—there's just not enough houses to go around.
Chris
Well, inventory is going to be low, really, for the foreseeable future. And I mean foreseeable future: years. We've talked about this before—home-building is off by 50% in the last ten or 15 years. That's a big number. And of course, the population has gotten bigger. So yeah, we're going to have some variation in what we see today. I think this is truly, truly the new normal.
Bryan
And so, I mean, with that low inventory and with this new normal we're moving into, is there anything that agents or that people in the business could be doing right now to capitalize on that or to, you know, to use that to their advantage? Or how should we be responding to this kind of new normal that we have?
Chris
Yeah, perfect question. Well, one aspect of this new normal is consistency. I mean, we're not going to be in these markets that are constantly running on bubbles that everyone's waiting to burst. And so I think we're going to have a lot more consistency in the housing cycle, in the housing market, which I think gives both buyers, sellers, and agents more time to plan, where it's not speculation. If I put my house on the market, "Is it going to sell?" Now if you put your house on the market and it's priced reasonably, it's going to sell. It's the same thing for a buyer. You know, they've got to get into the market. They will find something, but they've got to get in for that to happen.
And I think for the agents, it's the same thing where being very connected to your sphere of influence, your database, you know, communicating with the people that you've done business with that know and trust you—you know, those are all going to be the hallmarks of people who will be successful in this business.
One great thing about consistency—when you're in a very consistent market—it requires you to be consistent to be able to succeed.
Bryan
Awesome. That makes a lot of sense. So let's wrap up by broadening this out to your general advice this week. What do you have for people?
Chris
Well, I'm going to go along the lines of "new normal." And I think we all experience new normal. So like in this case, we're talking about new normal in a business sense, but we also have new normals in a personal sense too. And how observant are we of the trends? Whether they're personal or professional or with our families, whatever the case may be—how observant are we of those trends, and then when do we plug into them—because you can make a new normal work for you but you've got to embrace it and you got to know when.
And so I think that's what I'd like to leave everybody with is understanding, you know, no matter where you are, what is your new normal and how do I embrace it?
Bryan
Awesome. Great stuff. Thanks, Chris, for joining us once again this week. That's going to do it for this episode of Change and the Market. As always, make sure you like, subscribe, or follow us on whatever platform you're watching or listening to the show on, and make sure you join us back here next week for another brand-new episode of Change and the Market.
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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