Has anyone noticed that the housing inventory seems down? (houses, neighborhoods)

[PaliBoy20]

They are flying off the market quicker than you can hit refresh! I get homes sent to me by email from my agent on new listing/price reduced and by the time I set up an appointment with her to go see the house (within 2 days) it already has an offer or has contract on it. I'm like whaaaaaaaaaaaat!? Very frustrating. I'm in process with Short Sale and this thing is far from "short"...

[SparrowGirl]

Originally Posted by PaliBoy20

They are flying off the market quicker than you can hit refresh! I get homes sent to me by email from my agent on new listing/price reduced and by the time I set up an appointment with her to go see the house (within 2 days) it already has an offer or has contract on it. I'm like whaaaaaaaaaaaat!? Very frustrating. I'm in process with Short Sale and this thing is far from "short"...

Hang in there w/ the short sale. We bought a short sale through Bank of America last year. Ours went through pretty quickly. We got a close date about 60 days after we put the offer in.

[Yankeerose00]

Inventory is low in a lot of places. I personally think it's because many people are upside down on their homes, or they've done a market analysis and found they wont' get as much as hoped if they did put it on the market. So unless someone HAS to move, they just aren't going to sell. Which does create a low inventory.
We bought at the end of last year and there wasn't much to choose from. Before buying this house, however, there were several homes we looked at that we found either on Zillow or in the MLS only to find that the house would not have appraised. Many owners were trying to sell in 2011 for what they paid in 2006. So that made the inventory even smaller once we realized that even if we did want to make an offer on a particular house, it would never appraise for what the sellers were asking.

[Pruzhany]

Originally Posted by Alicia64
Well, my husband keeps saying that the banks are holding onto a bunch of foreclosures and will start putting them onto the market

What they are holding onto are the homes (and land) they paid too much for. As the market creeps back up then they place onto the market the homes that will have the least amount of loss.

If you want to beat the system, and have cash on hand or a pre-mortgage cash line, then you will need to do the leg work that some of us do. This also bypasses RE agents. Find the GIS for the county you are looking for. Then start clicking on the parcels until bank names show up as owners. Then research what the bank foreclosed it for and its current assessment. Drive to the property and take an external look at it. At this point you have a feel for it but you know its going to be an asis sale. I use a lawyer to contact the bank who would,with certain legalese wording, send them a letter of intent to make an offer to purchase the property. Depending on the response, and the bank (you'll have a much better chance with out of state banks) they will send someone with keys (on their dime) for you to do a walk through. Thats it in a small nut shell.

[ocngypz]

I've been watching the market very closely - though I'm looking at higher priced properties. New listings are coming in every day. I'm also seeing bank owned properties trickling back into inventory in all price ranges.

Use one of the local realtor's websites that doesn't require registration. You can very easily search for new listings. Guess I can't really say which one...but it's the best I've used for any market.

[PaliBoy20]

Originally Posted by SparrowGirl

Hang in there w/ the short sale. We bought a short sale through Bank of America last year. Ours went through pretty quickly. We got a close date about 60 days after we put the offer in.

If only. This is my 2nd attempt at a Short Sale. I haven't even been able to get my "extra" paperwork to the lender because nothing has advanced further than waiting on bank approval. I'm coming up on 45 days waiting on the bank alone to approve or not then would have to wait another 45 days MINIMUM to close.

First time around I waited like 30 days or so, did the inspection and discovered a WHOLE lot of repairs so I backed out.

[Bluidblonde]

Originally Posted by SparrowGirl

You are right. I stalk real estate on realtor.com in our area, even though we already bought a house last year. For this time of the year, which is typically the hottest time for home sales, there doesn't seem to be as much for sale compared to years past.

Something you need to know.....new listings that come to the market around here do not get put on Realtor.com immediately. I understand there is time lapse of several days. Where I was living before, the feeds to Realtor.com were so much quicker.....hours....where here, its days...... MLS would download instantly also, here in the Richmond area, I was told MLS download 4 times a day only.

[Charlesaf3]

Yes, low inventory is absolutely normal at this point in a real estate cycle. Think kubler Ross stages of grief applied to markets. The weird/contrary to economics result would be if there were NOT low inventory now.

Now the interesting question is how long it will last, as the inflationary environment is really weird thanks to what the fed is doing, which takes out the nominal prices rises that are usually part of freeing up inventory, even as real prices continue to reflect low cycle fundamentals. In this situation we are going to rely on forced sales until capitulation, which is closer but still not callable

[Charlesaf3]

Note - translated to English, above means don't worry prices won't go up, but the occasional nice place that comes on will move quickly, since most places coming on will need lots of work

[Alicia64]

Originally Posted by Charlesaf3

Note - translated to English, above means don't worry prices won't go up, but the occasional nice place that comes on will move quickly, since most places coming on will need lots of work

You've been really helpful -- thank you.

Alley