“The Market” as we call it in real estate (there are many others), changes often and quickly. I think many people hire agents who aren’t able to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and think of the market as a stagnant thing. It changes on a dime. Buyer demand cooled down a lot in late 2022, but the thing people who only read headlines need to know is inventory has not spiked. So people still need a place to live and many prefer to own rather than rent. The low inventory has made the market fairly balanced.

The doom and gloom headlines aren’t reflective of this reality.

I recently listed a condo in a building that gets mixed results. The average days on market for The Brittany for the pasts 6 months is 22 and list price to sales price is 98.82%. We beat both of those pretty drastically. We got 3 offers in 2 days on the market and will close over asking price.

We paid careful attention to the listings there and in other buildings around it, and observed that carpeted units tend to not move. It might sound odd but people hate carpet these days. The seller was willing to update the LVP flooring (fancy laminate) and do a fresh paint job. We staged it ourselves. Staged listings consistently sell for more than vacant units. You cannot skimp on these things and expect good results.

One agent submitted an all cash offer and asked me to cancel the open house. This offer was below asking and had contingencies! I told her we already had 2 offers, without contingencies, and she still came in low. She finally submitted an escalation clause but only texted “let me know if we should remove the inspection” after begging to be chosen.

Guys, this is not how this works. I already told her we had multiples and one had no contingencies. I gave her the map and she refused to follow it. Honestly what she did was just a disservice to her client and our profession, and not complicated to avoid either. The winning buyer had an agent who played no games, listened to what I told her and wrote a great offer that was a slam dunk. So when you think about hiring an agent, seriously ask them how quickly they can adapt to changing circumstances. It is the most important quality in an agent right now.

Meanwhile check out THIS lovely condo with amazing view the buyer with the professional agent who came in to win got!