Thoughts on the Market

I’m seeing all sorts of odd things. Houses terrifically overpriced in a falling market? Yup, there’s lots of that. Prevailing wisdom in the business has long been that you “list to survive” and so agents are taking listings that don’t stand any realistic chance of selling quickly. The theory is that sellers will eventually bring down their price and the agent will still be on board to earn a commission. The same agents, perhaps assuming that everyone is doing the same thing, walk around submitting lowball offers. This week one of my clients was given ninety minutes to respond to an offer $75,000 below the eminently reasonable asking price. When she declined to rise to that meagre bait, the agent was clearly irritated.

The end result is that even well-priced houses sit. Showings have dropped off dramatically. Determining fair market value when things have changed so much so often, has become complicated. And even when you get it right - pricing a house carefully and preparing it properly for market, with professional photography and floor plans, thoughtful marketing strategies - that doesn’t automatically result in a prompt sale at a reasonable price. The air on both sides of the fence that separates buyers from sellers is instead ripe with the funk of uncertainty and anxiety. I’m reminded of that old investment caveat: past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

Worryingly, we’re starting to see houses coming off the market now, with sellers apparently deciding to wait it out, to pull on a moth-eaten Shetland sweater and hunker down until Spring. Buyers are following suit. That bunker mentality, while understandable, is leading to market stagnation, and to people living where they don’t want to live.

There is no easy answer, no clear route forwards. But it really does seem to me that house prices in Kingston are likely as low as we will see them for a good while. They will surely begin to climb from here, whether that happens next week or next September. Which means that there is opportunity in the market right now, as if slabs of ethereal white marble might be quarried from a deep-seeming hole.

(The listings above and below are, of course, fine examples of what it’s possible to find out there.)