Welcome Back
The 2017 San Carlos real estate market will be throwing a “Welcome Home” party for a long lost friend. This friend has been largely ignored and had the market turn up its nose at it for too long. Beaten down, discouraged and tossed aside for better options, the Move Up Buyer is about to make a grand re-entrance into San Carlos real estate in 2017.
Just who is this long lost friend? The Move Up Buyer is a buyer who bought into the San Carlos market a few years ago, has outgrown their current home and would like to move into a larger home. Many Move Up Buyers would have ideally wanted to move to a larger home over the last four years, but market conditions made that option seem impossible and far too daunting for many to consider. In many cases, they were exactly correct.
Market conditions were so difficult, that only buyers who were well financed and were contingency-free would stand a chance on a successful offer on a property in San Carlos. Therefore, any family wanting to purchase another, larger home for their family would either need a house sale contingency for their current residence, or they would need to be able to qualify to purchase both homes at once. Because our home values are so high in San Carlos (the average home in 2016 being close to 1.7M) very few families could afford to hold nearly $4M worth or real estate.
The other option for many of the Move Up Buyers was to sell their home first, and then go out and purchase their next home. Many were nervous to do this because it was a scary proposition. What if they cannot find a home to match their needs quickly? What if it takes a few months and the market moves substantially in that time period? Bottom line, the last four years have created too much risk in this scenario for the Move Up Buyer.
In many healthy markets across the country, the Move Up Buyer is the market’s biggest player. In the San Carlos market over the past four years, that player was removed almost entirely. This is the primary reason our inventory levels were decimated. Most of our sales pulled from two buckets: (1) trustees sales from an estate; and (2) sellers who chose to pull the chord and parachute out of San Carlos.
The San Carlos market is still very healthy and doing just fine, but the market conditions have eased just enough to welcome back the Move Up Buyer. For the first time in four or five years, families who have been longing to get themselves into a larger home will have that opportunity in 2017. Doing so will require precise timing and a meticulously defined plan, but it is entirely possible. There is a reason I waited to post this article until January 2nd. Devise your plan in January so that you are ready to execute in early spring. The door is open. Welcome back, old friend.
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