I live in Michigan, just outside of Detroit. Could use some advice on how to effectively valuate a market.
Thanks!
Many people mistakenly rely on national trends when evaluating the real estate market. The key is to focus on and understand your local market.
Do not judge your market via blog posts or news articles. These can be seriously bias and conflicting. To understand your real estate market, here are a few things to focus on.
Job growth is the fuel of many real estate markets. Where there is strong growth, there are new workers. New workers need someplace to live. A vast percentage of these people will be moving in from another area and often are bringing money from a previous home. If job growth is strong, your real estate market should be stable and showing appreciation.
New construction is another area to consider when evaluating your market. In this case, we are focusing on supply and demand. The more homes available to buyers, the harder it will be for sellers to move properties. Most communities have some new construction, but the key is to determine if it is outpacing the demand.
A secret to evaluating your local real estate market is to look at people around you. One sign of a hot real estate market is the number of people who suddenly become real estate investors. These tend to be people using the equity in their primary home to make secondary purchases. There is no statistical analysis for this factor. Just keep an ear out for friends or neighbors who are suddenly investing in multiple properties.
Trends in the national real estate market are interesting, but often irrelevant when evaluating your local market. Focus on your area and you should be able to better evaluate whether you should sell, hold or buy properties.
Great advice for me as well.
Don’t you think some blog posts and articles especially from writers with experience in the industry might be useful and thus we should not ignore all articles/blogs
I strongly believe that the internet dominates real estate marketing trends; 87% of recent home buyers in the US used the internet as an information resource. There are other sources that set the pace but the internet has really contributed in setting the trend.
Breanne, you are right about the internet being an important part of the real estate market. Because of this, we need to make certain that potential buyers know the difference between good and bad websites in regards to buying and selling real estate. Consumers still feel that if something is said online it must be a fact.
We need to educate the buyers and sellers as to where are the good places to get the real estate information that they are looking for. Zillow? I think not.
John that is very true; where can one get the information of good and bad websites? have you had issues with Zillow i was thinking of using it please shed some light and what do you think about Trulia, active rain?
which one do you rank best?
Good evening,
What a great opportunity to learn. If you want to know the market in your area, and you will, better than most realtors in your area, Contact at least three realtors in your area, because only two will respond properly. You will have to weed through till you find some that will work to your expectations. Let them know you want auto email listings every day of the new listings on both sides of the price range you want to buy in. You also want another search daily for all homes sold, also pending.
You do not want any realtor searching daily for you but automatic emails they set up through the MLS system. None will work that hard for you unless you are their Only client. Besides you dont want them to work that hard…yet.
study the square feet, price, condition and everything that justifies the pricing. Compare listing prices with “sold” pricing. Watch the listing price changes…when realtors drop the price on their listing or increase.
What you will learn/gain is the ability to drive by a home and know what is worth before a realtor does a market study. You will then know your market and be able to negotiate right away with a seller in your favor.
Hope this helps,Darin