The real estate loan industry seems to be in turmoil at the present time. Buyers and sellers alike are struggling to make sense of a seemingly changing world. Buyers are concerned about the future of their jobs while sellers have grave concerns about the lack of buyers that are out looking for properties during the pandemic. Our real estate practice is seeing fewer buyers that are actively searching, but the ones that are searching are very serious about buying.
Unlike the real estate and credit crashes of the 2007-2010, there is now a much better balance between the number of buyers vs the number of sellers active on the market. In that previous downturn, the market was flooded with a huge supply of homes to purchase. That glut of properties for sale drastically outnumbered buyers that were willing and able to purchase. We are actually seeing a SHORTFALL in houses that are available right now. In other words, even with fewer buyers out there looking, we’re still seeing more buyers than sellers.
We’ve heard from buyers that they wish to wait a bit to see if sellers will start to panic and become more amicable to lowering their prices. The lack of inventory on the market, however, makes that somewhat unlikely in our opinion.
We do expect both buyers and sellers to be cautions through these uncertain times, but we do feel that the balance that we are seeing between buyers and sellers will allow real estate markets in most areas to hold their values.