When you read the newspapers or listen to TV and radio newscasters happily showing the up and down charts, you see or hear, “The real estate market is upside down,” or “High rates in mortgage markets are destroying the market.”
While all this is very entertaining in its own way, what does it have to do with all of us here in the Five Towns of Long Island in New York State? Our market has always been different from what’s going on everywhere else, and that certainly has not changed, no matter what is going on in the greater economy.
While it is true that certain parts of this country are having a terrible time, and their terrible time and inability to spend money is affecting other businesses in those areas, we here in the Five Towns have been very fortunate not to be in this situation. It’s the old real estate saying, “location, location.” Everyone wants to move here, and we never have enough inventory no matter what the market for all those looking to buy here.
Our inventory of houses for sale shows that we have a number of homes for sale throughout the Five Towns, but when separated into different categories such as size, location, price range, updated, not updated, new construction etc., the picture changes.
When broken into the various categories, all of a sudden there are very few houses available in each category, and when broken into location, fewer still, which is why we have so many frustrated buyers out there looking for homes, thinking that there are dozens and dozens to choose from given all the media hype they hear, but finding that there are actually very few to choose from in the category of their choosing.
Many of them have been looking since the summer, patiently taking a wait-and-see attitude since the newspapers are all saying, “Prices are going to fall more” and “The real estate market is going to get worse before it gets better.” People are taking them at their word and waiting for their special house to come through and to be able to jump on it at a lower price.
I am afraid they are waiting in vain for things to happen that realistically do not look like they will happen. Although as usual during the wintertime purchasing slows down a little, even with that in mind there are still fewer homes available for sale than are needed for the buying public and there are no bargains anywhere to be had.
Our real-estate prices have not really changed at all from the summer, when they continued to climb because of lack of sufficient inventory, and prices have not come down except maybe for those homes that were overpriced to begin with and needed a price correction from day one.
What I find interesting is how often you hear from buyers that they want to avoid getting into bidding wars with other people, something buyers did not shy away from years ago.
So, in summary, today the Five Towns real-estate market is still very strong, although the availability of houses in some categories might be less than the availability of houses in other categories. We need an injection of more homes for sale for the many buyers still looking to buy, higher mortgage rates notwithstanding, and the Five Towns continues to be a different market than anywhere else because of its popularity.
Within the next two months, we will be beginning the spring market when new sellers typically put their homes up for sale and new buyers start looking for houses. We all wait to see what this new cycle of activity will bring. n
Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a licensed real-estate broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) and licensed N.Y.S. mortgage originator with over 20 years of experience offering full-service residential, commercial, and management real-estate services as well as mortgage services. She can be reached at 516-569-5007 or via her website, www.AVCrealty.com. Readers are encouraged to send questions or comments to anessa@AVCrealty.com. Read more of Anessa Cohen’s articles at 5TJT.com.
