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“After 42 years, to see so many single-family homes sell so quickly, over asking, without an inspection, is jaw dropping. The lack of inventory seems unending. I’m hopeful now that spring has come, maybe that will change. There are just no indicators that it will.” —Barbara Brin, Coldwell Banker
Artemisa Boston of Realty Group has a by-the-numbers take on the housing market: She’s seeing 20-plus offers on almost every house, 30–40 percent of buyers waiving inspections, and around 15 percent of properties going $50,000 over asking price.
“We’re out of inventory right now—it’s maddening,” says Mark Parrish of Lakes Sotheby’s International Realty, adding that the market is flush with cash buyers and competitive offers, which is good for sellers, to a point. “There’s a catch-22 if you’re a seller—great, you’ve made all this money. But where are you gonna go?”
“We’ve really struggled in this market to get FHA buyers’ offers accepted. Agents are counseling their clients that conventional is best....We have clients who have been working their butts off, and we finally get them ready to go. They’re 10 offers in and still not getting one.” —Lasha Raddatz, Keller Williams
“Buyers are acting a little irrationally,” says Edina Realty’s Amy Michielle Freeman. Last spring, MLS added a “Coming Soon” feature to preview houses, but she thinks it backfired. “People are writing [offers] sight unseen,” she says, “and probably throwing extra money at it, not just the list price.”
Sam Leverson of Edina Realty had cattle-rancher buyers up the ante on a competitive house by adding a cow to their offer: “They wrote up a Word document saying they’d have it fully processed and packaged to the sellers’ wishes.”
An uncertain year has kept would-be sellers at home, says RE/MAX’s Amy Ruzick. Homeowners 10 years into their mortgage want to stay put in an unstable job market. “As more people get vaccinated, maybe more people will be ready to move,” she says.
