Ask the REALTOR: How can I tell whether I’m in a buyers’ market or a sellers’ market?

By in Ask the REALTOR® with 0 Comments
Published on December 6, 2017 / Last updated on January 10, 2018

Ask the REALTOR® is a regular video series in which I answer your most commonly-asked real estate questions, with a new Q&A posting every week. If YOU have a real estate question for me, drop me a note here.

This week’s question: What are the pros and cons of using a local lender vs. a national mortgage service? Here’s the answer in this brief video, and don’t miss the transcript below.

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Transcript:

Hi, this is Cari McGee with Keller Williams Real Estate. Welcome to this week’s episode of “Ask the Realtor.” Every week, I answer questions from buyers and sellers and pretty much everyone in between regarding real estate. So, this week’s question is…

How can I tell whether I’m in a buyers’ or a sellers’ market?

Well, one good way to figure that out is to ask your agent for the “absorption rate” for your market. Now, the absorption rate is defined as the amount of time it would take for all the homes in an area to sell out completely without any new homes entering the market. For example, if there are 100 homes on the market and 50 sold in one month, you would have a two-month supply. So you would have a two-month absorption rate, and that’s because 100 divided by 50 is 2.

A two-month absorption rate indicates that you are in a sellers’ market. Anywhere from about one to two-and-a-half months is a sellers’ market. Three to four is kind of a balanced market…neither sellers nor buyers have the upper hand. And then anything over five months means that you’re in a buyers’ market. So, take that into consideration when you’re making your offer.

And I hope that that has helped. By all means, go ahead and give me a shout if you have any real estate questions via any one of the methods that are to follow on the screen. Thanks so much, have a good one. Bye!

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About The Author
Cari McGee

My husband and I came to the Tri-Cities in 1994, and we thought it would be a temporary stop on our way to larger cities. He was a television sports anchor at the time, and we planned to go wherever the "next step up" took us. Twenty-plus years later, we're still here and we've loved every minute of it! We have two children now, and we've found the Tri-Cities area is a wonderful place to raise a family. It's a great place to do outdoorsy things -- I like to hike Badger Mountain or run along the river path. I also love reading ... by a cozy fire in the winter or a beautiful picture window in the summer (with the A/C on!). I've been a licensed Realtor since 2004. I earned my managing broker's license in 2016, which means I can run my own brokerage, or create a team of real estate agents and supervise them, which is exactly what I did when I formed the Cari McGee Real Estate Team in 2018! We have administrative and marketing personnel, as well as additional agents to serve you. I became a director of the Tri-Cities Association of Realtors Board of Directors in 2016, became Secretary/Treasurer of the organization, and was elected to Vice President in 2019. Want to talk about real estate? Click here to schedule a meeting with me!

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