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2024: Navigating the Real Estate Party – Should You Arrive Early or Fashionably Late?
By admin_leng | Published March 04, 2024
As quarter one of 2024 comes to an end, one may think to themselves, “How am I able to successfully navigate this year, this party that is to be 2024? Should I come early and be the first person there? Do I show up fashionably late and miss the beginning?”. Maximizing opportunity, both in fun and in business, is what it is all about! In the world of builders and developers, no one wants to miss out … ever. The overall feeling of 2024, thus far, is that uncertainty in the short term is overwhelming. The industry feels confident in what the long term housing market will bring; it is the short term that has us questioning ourselves. We need […]
Q4 2023: Goodbye Uncertainty, Hello Stability
By admin_leng | Published January 17, 2024
Say GOODBYE to the uncertainty that was 2023 and HELLO to the stability 2024 should bring! In the real estate industry, the fourth quarter months of 2023 ended with interest rates finally settling into a more predictable pattern. Housing market trends in 2023 were incredibly hard to predict – making planning very hard to do. As we close the door on yet another year, the environment feels as though things are shifting in our favor! Historically high interest rates of 2023 averted buyers. However, mortgage demand rose after interest rates lowered in the months of November and December. This end of year ease of interest rates and inflation should bring house hunters back in 2024. Baby boomers wanting to downsize […]
Q1 2023: THE MARKET REBALANCE IS UPON US
By admin_leng | Published February 28, 2023
We all knew it. The time would eventually come when the imaginary housing market reset button was pressed and the market itself rebalanced. It was bound to happen and we are now living through it. 2023 will be a clean up year. Supply, demand, buyers, sellers, mortgage rates, builders and more will strive to balance themselves in a way that is sustainable in our growing economy. Certain price points and communities have more supply than demand right now. 2023 will bring the clean up of new construction spec homes. A spec(ulative) home is one built on the idea it will easily sell for a profit. This might not be the case this year. Fundamentally, there are more new construction spec […]
2022: A YEAR OF UPS AND DOWNS
By admin_leng | Published January 20, 2023
We can all agree. The past few years have been crazy for our industry. 2022 started strong, but we could feel the market beginning to cool by the end of the second quarter; a feeling that continued into Q3 and Q4. Many, many factors have been driving the real estate ups and downs as of late. The loudest of which has been the fluctuation of interest rates. The volatile rate environment in the latter half of 2022 does seem to be stabilizing and industry optimists are hopeful buyers will return. The Federal Reserve may even be prepared to help, by slowing the uptick in interest rates as they see inflation numbers declining. Other promising factors are at play as well. […]
Change is in the air: Q3 2022 Housing Snapshot
By admin_leng | Published October 19, 2022
Change is in the air for buyers, sellers, builders, developers, lenders, and others in our industry! Everyone, everywhere is trying to adapt to a housing market that is very different from what we experienced just last quarter. The strong buyer pool we have experienced the last few years has cooled with higher interest rates. This does give our marketplace a chance to tie up loose ends, get new construction homes finished, and get back to the basics. “Realtors across the country confirm what the macroeconomic data says: the housing market is in a transition, driven by an uncertain economy and consumer backdrop. Inflation is hot and economic growth, as measured by the GDP reading, is tepid. But jobs remain plentiful […]
Builder Luncheon Recap, What’s Ahead for 2022, and More!
By admin_leng | Published February 24, 2022
During The Builder and Developer Luncheon on February 24, 2022, I compared the building/housing industry to a Nascar race. With the hot market…we are all speeding down the track at high speeds. Everything is going smoothly. Maybe too smooth. This is exactly how I feel the real estate industry is going right now. The housing market is setting records every way we look at it! Inventory is extremely low, with bidding wars to top it off! As a real estate agent, one cannot work enough hours to keep up with the demand. Everything is moving so very fast (especially price increases), that one cannot help but wonder; how long can it last? When does a tire pop and a multi-car […]
Q1 2021 is HOT despite record freezing temps!
By admin_leng | Published February 26, 2021
The ending of the first quarter of 2021 marks the one year mark for the global coronavirus pandemic. Who could have predicted we would also be in the one of the robust housing markets any of us have ever experienced? What brought about this market, we ask ourselves? Was it the extremely low interest rates? Could it be the stimulus money that was introduced into our economy? Is the work from home requirements that our workforce was forced to accommodate? We may never fully understand all the factors that got us to where we are today but everyone can agree; this is uncharted territory for the housing market, both in new construction and resale. When looking at 19 different communities […]
Q1 2020: DES MOINES METRO HOUSING SNAPSHOT
By admin_leng | Published February 26, 2020
Earlier this month, the groundhog told us “spring is coming” as he crept out of his burrow after his long winter sleep. Spring, indeed, is coming and for the real estate and homebuilding industries this is an exciting time of year! We left off in January looking ahead to 2020 with mixed expectations as some were feeling there was great potential laying ahead while others felt a market slow down could be predicted. As we approach the end of February 2020 and let the data do the talking, it seems the optimists were right and there IS great potential to come. Total active listings has decreased and mortgage rates have stayed low. To begin, let’s look at the Des Moines-area […]
Q4 2019: Des Moines Metro Housing Snapshot
By Kalen | Published January 20, 2020
It’s a wrap! Now that 2019 is behind us, it’s a good time to take a look back at the performance of our Des Moines Metro housing market last year. From recent conversations I’ve had with leaders in the real estate and homebuilding industries, there seems to be a mixed bag of opinions about the state of the market and expectations for the coming year. Some feel that they are the busiest they have ever been and see GREAT POTENTIAL for 2020. Others are feeling a bit slower than previous years and see signs of a slower real estate market. As we start peeling back the data, what we can see right away is an overall low supply that has […]
Q3 2019: Des Moines Metro Housing Snapshot
By Kalen | Published October 25, 2019
Like it or not, autumn has arrived and old man winter is fast approaching in Central Iowa. Speaking of crazy Iowa weather, it has actually played a very interesting role in this year’s real estate sales and market activity. Excessive rainfall in recent months helped turn some building sites into impromptu slip-and-slides, causing delays in construction and contributing to a lower-than-expected number of housing starts. Developers, too, haven’t been able to get in all the plats they had hoped and many are playing catch up following a super wet summer and spring. Currently, interest rates, talk of future recession, and a dip in home sales from prior years are each at the forefront of everyone’s mind. In reality, weather conditions […]
