Nationally, existing-home sales are down 2.4% through April despite a 5.1% gain in the number of properties for sale, says National Association of Realtors senior economist Nadia Evangelou. Costs are an issue: “The market is seeing a recovery in listings, but demand remains soft due to affordability constraints,” she says.
In Dallas, where prices have risen more than 50% since late 2019, buyers aren’t pulling the trigger “because prices haven’t really crashed yet,” says Re/Max’s Luong. “They are going to need to see some sort of a drop that is very evident compared to what prices were a few years ago.” Though price cuts have picked up, the magnitude of the drops—$10,000 here, $15,000 there—isn’t enough to get buyers back in the game, he adds.
Ya see, when I make a bunch of money on a stock,
a uexpectedly quick gain, I usually sell. I certainly do NOT plan the rest of my life around that stock keep its new-found value long term.
Well a lot of homeowners (people) are trapped in their mortgages.
When rates wer 2.5% instead of buying a reasonable house and saving a bundle of money.
They bought the biggest house they could possibly afford, and now moving. (for divorce, age, job transfer etc.) means stepping down their lifestyle a LOT.
My uncle had a nice piece of land.
He followed the rules when he subdivided, and truned it into a series of biggesh lots.
The silly wrong-headed idea of the (rural) township was that to preserve the rural atmosphere, which is a truly worthy goal, each home should have a large lot.
Today it looks like a farm chopped up into large lots. Ugly ugly ugly.
It would been much better if he had put a 4-pack of townhomes in one little corner and left the rest as a farmette.
That wasn’t legal but he now wishes he had asked.
(Below is NOT my uncle’s land. It’s just an illustration I use to make the point.)
Let’s be perfectly clear, the reason we have tins like set back laws and laws about minimum lot sizes and laws agsing multi-family housing etc. is because buliders and buyers and sellers would build and buy and sell those things
Laws are passed to prevent people from doing what they want
Image 1
four-10 home clusteed together in the corner of a large field. lots of field, lots of woods etc.
vs
Image 2
drive 330 feet → House
drive 330 feet → House
drive 330 feet → House
drive 330 feet → House
drive 330 feet → House
Now imagine the government stepped in and said
"NO! We must preseve nature so you should spread those 20 homes apart from each other onto 3 acre lots.
It is much better if they chew-up sixty acres.
We will pass minimum lot sizes. You are prohibitted from keeping those homes together and leaving the land untouched.
The gov’t could say
“You are free do whatever you want.”
Or it could say “Noooo! You are not free. You are not allowed to do that. You will obey.
You must have three acre lots sizes and every home must sit at least 50 feet from the side of every lot. . . . that way we will preseve out natural beauty.”
This is anecdotal, but from what I have seen in NJ it’s still a decent housing market. The houses in my area that have gone up for sale have sold rather quickly and for asking price or higher. I also know people who have recently purchased homes who actually had to over bid.
I keep my eyes open for changes in the NJ market,
and I have seen nothing major. Generally, even though half of all states are seeing price declines, the big drops in price are in a hanful of southern states.
I do not disagree,
but all the laws are agsinst multi-family and highdensity housing.
Apparently builders think
“When I buy 30 acres I’d rather put up 30-100 homes instead of just ten,”
—> and buyers will gladly accept these because of lower prices.
"I don’t want to put in
300-feet of road, and
300-feet of sidewalks, and
300-feet of sewer, and
300-feet of of storm drain, and
300-feet of water main, and
300-feet of . . . for every home unless you make me.
—> and buyers will gladly accept these because of lower prices.
Along comes government and says: “What buyers and sellers and builders want is stoopid. We must prevent them from doing what they want. As a goverment it is our job to prevent people from getting what they want.”
The result is made clear in the pictures I posted.
