A Healthy vs. A Happy Real Estate Market and What Kind of Happy are we Talking About?
Being in real estate, full time, for almost 20 years now, I’ve seen quite a few changes in the market. Some good and some not so good. Opinions vary but most experts say a Healthy Real Estate Market is defined as having enough homes to sell and enough buyers to buy so that the turnaround time for a home is between 90 to 120 days. Of course, that would not make a seller happy but it’s, according to experts, a healthy market. On the other hand, if we had a market of 120 days or so there would be plenty of homes for buyers to choose from and that would make buyers very happy. That brings me to the reason for this post: What is the difference between a healthy market and a happy market? Why is that even important? Well let’s dive in and see if we can draw any conclusions.
Healthy Market: In a healthy market both sellers and buyers benefit as close to equally as possible. There are enough homes to sell and enough buyers to buy so that the values of homes do not skyrocket or so many houses and few buyers that the value of homes plunge. Instead you have a gradual and steady uptick in value over a long period of time that meets the sellers needs and the buyer’s income.
A Happy Buyer’s Market: In a Happy Buyer’s Market, there are lots of homes for sale and not a lot of competing buyers, therefore, home prices are driven down, making it more affordable for buyers.
A Happy Seller’s Market: In a Happy Seller’s Market, there are not as many homes competing with each other and a lot of buyers needing homes. This drives the value up and sellers are happy.
However, in a Happy Buyer’s Market the buyer wins on the purchase but loses out, often, if they had to sell their present home to buy the new one. And in a Happy Seller’s Market the seller wins on the sell but then takes those winning and gives them back on the purchase.
So, what Kind of market are we in, in West Georgia? Keep in mind that Real Estate is a local reality and that it will vary from state to state, county to county, city to city, zip code to zip code, school district to school district, and yes, even sometimes, street to street. Watching National or Local TV or even reading on the internet may not give you a good picture of your area.
Even West Georgia varies depending on where you live. But as a whole Cobb, Paulding, and Douglas counties are becoming saturated with people moving out of other saturated counties or are moving in to these counties as industry grows in our area. This is putting a strain on these counties and the spill over is happening in Carroll, Haralson, and even… believe it or not: Heard County (Of course Heard County’s Schools are getting high marks and that helps).
At the same time the number of homes on the market are low and therefore, it’s Happy Seller time, but not a lot of sellers are happy because there are few homes in most price ranges on the market. There are some prices ranges, especially below the 200K mark that are practically non-existent.
What does this mean to you? Well, first off, if you are a seller then it’s time to get in there and sell, if you are ready, willing, and able: The Market wants you. If you are a buyer then it’s going to be a little tougher but keep in mind that if this trend does not change it will be even tougher down the road so if you, the buyer, are ready, willing, and able: Then don’t wait it’s not getting better, at this time, and it may cost you if you wait.
Conclusion: We may never see a truly healthy market and happiness will swap between buyers and sellers as the year go by. For now, congratulations Sellers, it’s you market.
If you’d like to buy or sell contact me at 770.312.5936 or email at adrian.ashmore.realtor@gmail.com or go to www.AdrianAshmore.com.