There’s even less inventory than last year, but we can still help you buy.

Welcome to our February 2022 market update. It’s hard to believe that we’re already a month into the new year. Let’s jump right in and talk about three things: the market statistics, what’s happening with interest rates, and how we can deal with our ultra-low inventory.

Our inventory is way down; we had 132 homes on the market at the end of January. Compare that to over 238 homes last year. We have 44% fewer homes for sale than a year ago, and we already had record-low inventory last year. It’s simply gotten more extreme.

Our pending sales are down a little. We have 153 pending homes, which is about a 40% drop from last year. However, that makes sense since there are fewer homes. The same goes for closed sales, with 152 this year versus 201 last year.

We only saw 66 new homes last month compared to 100 new homes in January of 2021. To give you an idea of how low that is, our team has about 40 buyers who truly want to purchase a house. We only have 66 new homes, so prices are up across the board.

“Our low-inventory saga continues.”

We saw a bit of an increase in interest rates. About 60 days ago, rates were in the low 3% range. Now they are in the high 3% range and could continue to rise this year.

Lastly, a lot of people want to make a move, but it feels like there’s nothing out there to buy. How do we deal with this low inventory? It’s different now than it used to be. Unless you have the cash to buy a new home outright, the winners in this market are sellers who make their sales contingent on finding a new home.

This helps for several reasons. Most of our sellers had no idea how much their homes were worth, so they can sell for more than they thought, which widens the choices that they have. On top of that, most buyers are willing to wait, so this contingency allows sellers time to find a new house. We have four or five other ways to help you sell and buy, but at the end of the day, this is the best option.

If you are thinking of making a move but are scared by the low inventory, call us at (805) 781-3750. We have plenty of ways to make sure you can move into your next house.