Keeping It REAL - by Bettsy Tyler

Some things come back in style after a while, like fashion or home décor, but the same doesn’t hold true for real estate advice. And yet, retro advice is exactly what most people get when they (understandably) go to family and friends for tips about home buying and selling.  The real estate market is not unlike the stock market – it is ever changing – and if you are looking to buy or sell, you’d better be on top of the market trends and activity, and have a good real estate agent by your side. We are currently in a fast-paced housing market, it’s important to know what tips will stand the test of time and which advice is so outdated that it’ll set you up for failure. Here are five pieces of retro real estate advice that could cost you the sale or home of your dreams.  Retro tip #1: A great open house will seal the deal. The open house has long been known as the main driver of house sales. However, a hybrid of marketing efforts is what sells a house today. Serious buyers prefer...

It’s the old supply-and-demand predicament: Home sales in the U.S. continue at a torrid pace, but the availability of listings remains limited. Buoyed by historically low mortgage rates, buyers keep shopping for homes, reducing the available inventory and sparking a rise in home prices across the country.   News website  The Atlantic  summarized the sizzling home market this way:   “Pick a housing statistic at random, and it’s probably setting an all-time record. Home prices: record high. Inventory: record low. Percentage of homes selling above asking price: record high. Average time on market: record low.”¹   Meanwhile, homebuilders are contending with an increase in material costs and a shortage of labor. These issues come amid an ongoing shortage of housing. A study commissioned by the National Association of Realtors found the U.S. is coping with a deficit of about 2 million single-family homes and about 3.5 million other housing units.²   So what can w...