MARKET SHIFT ALERT (and it’s got sellers sweating)
- Shivani Peterson
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Change is hard. And to compound that, it always seems to happen really fast. I know you thought I’d be covering Elon and Trump’s dumpster fire break up – and to be honest I really wanted to give you the Gossip Girl style rundown – but we have bigger fish to fry this week my friends. We are in a buyer’s market and shits about to get real on multiple levels.
I will have to come back to the Loverboy’s drama plot because it impacted markets which of course impacts interest rates so stick around.
How do we have a buyer’s market when interest rates are still in the 6’s?
Excellent question my friends, and I’m going to break it down.
As of April, unsold housing inventory in our country has reached a record value of almost $700 billion. As you know, Redfin reported that inventory now outnumbers buyers by 500,000. It’s important to note that none of this means we are on the verge of a market crash or bubble pop and I explained why in last week’s video.
There has been a very real increase in inventory, especially here in Northern Nevada. We are up 15% over the last 30 days. This gives buyers more options and also more negotiating power. Especially if they are shopping for starter homes or investment properties. Why? Price trends seem to be varying based on home size. The median price in Reno is currently $576k, which is a 4.7% increase year-over-year. But! Two-bedroom homes actually saw a slight decrease of 1.2%.
Please for the love of whatever god you pray to, share this information with your first time-homebuyers.
Market Dynamics
Homes are spending more time on the market. Which is why we are seeing sellers more willing to accept contingent offers. Of course, this makes the deals a bit hairier for you and me, but we can handle it. Days on market is now 76 days, which is 2 days further in the direction of a balanced market than we were last year.
Please note this if you are a seller. You should consider those contingent offers. As a buyer, who has maybe felt trapped because you have to sell in order to buy…look alive!
All in all this is going to mean more negotiation across the board, which is great news in my opinion. While fear and uncertainty are definitely factors here – higher interest rates are facilitating a lot of this market shift. We tend to think lower interest rates would lead to a better market for buyers but as we saw in the pandemic, that is not the case because it brings such an influx of buyers and investors into the space – that prices jump out and affordability gets shot in the other foot.
The Economy
Jobs Friday plus the wheel’s came off with Trump and my boy E yesterday. Let’s start with the fight. As you know, because we’ve discussed it right here, one the major criticisms of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is the increase on the government deficit. Well Elon wasn’t down and made his opinion known. He said we should actually vote out everyone who voted for the bill. Trump fired back and things escalated really quickly. Tesla’s stock tanked 14% during the feud Thursday, which erased $152 billion in market capitalization. Wild huh? That’s the largest single day loss in Tesla’s history. Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, fell 8% as well. This former lover’s quarrel impacted the broader market too of course, fueling investor concerns about market volatility.
Now on to Jobs. ADP came out on Wednesday showing a major softening in the labor market with only 37,000 jobs added. Then BLS came out today and while we were expecting 125,000 jobs added, we got a report of 139,000 which currently has mortgage bonds down 32 basis points.
Rates aren’t falling, at least not today, but now you know – that only makes it more of a buyer’s market.
