Lots of people have been saying that they’re scared to make a move in this current real estate market. I want to clear the air that I don’t think this market is plummeting. It’s simply a bit cooler, a bit slower and a bit more reasonable than it has been for many years, and that’s what most of us have wanted.
There are a few greedy ones who have had to face the music that maybe they aren’t going to sell their house for as much as they would have had they listed earlier, and there are a few desperate ones who bought when the market was super hot and then sold when it was in the middle of the shift, but most of them have figured out a plan and have swallowed the bitter pill of the new reality.
For everyone else, there is no need to panic.
Now that we’ve been experiencing the downshift for nearly half a year now, most have begun to settle in and accept it. The new property values didn’t happen any quicker than the previous increases happened. It’s understandable that eventually we hit a wall and people were no longer willing (or in many cases, able) to continue competing with dozens of other buyers on the same property and paying $100k or $150k or $200k over the list price and offering without any conditions. That may have seemed normal to many of us after years of revving up into the most overheated market we’ve ever experienced, but that wasn’t normal at all. What we’re experiencing now is normal.
Individuals who make decisions based on fear, are usually the ones who end up losing in the long run.
If you don’t own a home, do you want to? Or do you want to sell your current home and buy something different, what’s stopping you? One great thing about our current conditions is that there may not be as big of a gap between your current home and the property you’d like to purchase.
Make some plans and proceed with the assistance of a professional who you can trust to guide you in a way that helps you succeed. If the property values decline for a little longer, that really doesn’t hurt the consumer, as long as they plan to own the property for several years. When the market begins to trend up again.
No matter what the media is covering about real estate, it has almost always been what I would consider to be inaccurate based on our local market. Very rarely is the coverage local enough. The stats they usually use are either national stats, or stats based on Toronto or Vancouver, which are areas that tend to be the first to be affected when there is a market shift. National stats or GTA stats are somewhat relevant in that they tell the big picture, but they don’t tell the story like a local Realtor would be able to share based on their recent experiences. Every single real estate market across the nation is different. Even the Waterloo market is different than the Cambridge market, which is different from Guelph. You can easily drive to all these cities within an hour, but what drives each of these markets is completely different – every market has their own individual factors.
Waterloo region has almost always performed better than the national average. Even if the property values aren’t the highest in our area than some of the bigger cities in Canada, our market has always been more stable because we have some unique factors that make our values less volatile than some of the other markets in the country.
Consider that real estate has ALWAYS been a good long-term investment and our current market is NOT a poor market. And the good news is, you can likely get an offer accepted right now with conditions and you may not have to compete.
