Staten Island home sellers are always asking … Are homes selling? The answer to that question is short and sweet but maybe a little bittersweet. This past weekend as a Realtor I hosted three open houses on my homes listed for sale. The weather was cooperative as it was a beautiful weekend on Staten Island so the buyers were out. After this weekend I can answer with confidence that yes homebuyers are out looking to buy and are purchasing homes.
To give you the buyers’ profile, almost all the buyers were first time buyers, and just starting to search for a home. It seems to me that there are many buyers who may have been on the fence, or just waiting for the right time to buy. The home buyers might have decided that the right time may have finally come. This is due to several positive factors which greatly impact real estate buying activity.
The first reason in my opinion is that there is pent up demand especially from first time buyers. There is only so long you can put off buying your first home. There comes a time when you finally realize that it won’t get much better than now to plunge into homeownership. The second reason to buy now is of course the great interest rate environment. Again, it just doesn’t get much better than now in terms of interest rates. The risk of rates increasing is much greater than the chance that they might go even lower. So again that gives an incentive to buy now rather than later. Finally, the third reason to buy now is that according to market researcher, in Staten Island as well as New York City as a whole, it has been found that owning a home may indeed be cheaper than renting especially when one factors in the tax deductions that one can take as a homeowner.
To sum up to the sellers questioning if buyers are buying … the answer is yes. The reason why I said the answer may be bittersweet is that while buyers are indeed buying homes today, in order to sell, sellers’ houses must be priced to sell. You cannot put your home on the market with yesterday’s price tag. That means that a home seller today must hire a professional Realtor who will accurately give them the selling price of their home and must then follow the Realtor’s advice. All properties sell when they are priced to sell. Sellers must realize that the market dictates the selling price, not the homeowner, and not the Realtor. As long as the seller hires a selling agent who utilizes the latest marketing tools for maximum exposure of the property in the marketplace, if it is priced right it will sell. I guarantee it.
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