Market shifting: Where are things at in Albuquerque’s Real Estate Market

(Transcript Snippet): “Tracy:

You mentioned something. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. You had said when about market shifting and, you know, it’s interesting. I was talking with some friends, clients that bought and sold with us back October, November. And we were talking about how out during that time, they pretty much as home sellers netted the most, even for today’s market had they waited till today, but they were in a better seat when they were buyers in, because actually the market was kind of in a lull September, October, November, maybe even into December. And then it shifted and we really got this selling frenzy. Right. And it’s interesting cuz you know, we don’t know when it’s gonna shift again and all of a sudden things shift and we go, oh wait, it’s not the same anymore. And you said things change quickly. So right now the, the tide is still sellers are in a very good position if you’re thinking of selling.

Tego:

You know, the interesting thing is we’re gonna see some statistics. We’ve already seen it this year, that the number of home sales are down and, and it looks like that’s gonna hold true through March. I’ve already been, I’m sorry, not March, April. I’ve already been looking closely at the April numbers. And just where things are at and, and the number of sales are gonna be down over last year. Of course, 2021 was a, a record year for, for home sales in the Albuquerque area. And so you, now you gotta compare to that. The thing that’s interesting about that just cuz the number of sales are down doesn’t mean that home prices are going down. And, and so what we have is we have this very low inventory number of homes on the market and we still have strong demand even with the higher interest rates. And so home prices have continued to get pushed up, even though, you know, the number of sales have, have slowed down, right? So you gotta, what I’m getting at is people are gonna see headlines that say home sales are, are slowing down. Home sales are down 10% over last year and everybody gonna say, oh no, the market’s crashing. It’s like, no, no that’s not what it is. Yeah. It’s

Tracy:

Dig deeper.

Tego:

Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy:

Don’t read the headline.

Tego:

Yeah. There’s, there’s always one more, three more, 10 more thousand data points that that need to be considered. So,

Tracy:

So you and I have these conversations almost every morning over coffee, right? We talk about different headlines and we read the, the fine print it’s in the story. Sometimes that’s not very pronounced and it’s, it’s really misleading. You know, one of the things that I noticed this week Tega is, seems like some of the people that might have been home sellers before besides some of them have decided during the whole pandemic and times after now that they are remodeling and adding on to their homes. And so it’s really, you know, that people aging in place, they don’t wanna go somewhere like an assisted living and be locked down. That was very pandemic related. Yep. But a lot of people kind of got in their mind how to make the home they’re in more their own. Now there are some supply of chain issues, but I’ve, we’ve talked to several friends this past week who had time during the pandemic that did remodel and did add on to their homes. And, and that’s part of an inventory shortage that we have.

Tego:

Well, and I think part of that, people feel confident in investing in their home and doing upgrades in their home. The market has been so strong and we’ve had this, you know, big appreciation over the, the last few years. So people feel safe in, you know, putting that money into the home. I think there’s some of that going on as well.

Tracy:

The other thing we’ve seen just from our experience here in real estate and having friends is people, some are upgrading, changing their primary residents, but they’re keeping the house they had. Yeah. And making it a rental property. And just decided that that was part of their wealth building strategy. So, you know, honestly, Tigo, we talk about that, right? Yeah. That real estate is very wealth building. So we teach that. We want them to do that and we do need rentals. So they’re putting them in the rental pool on some level, whether it’s short term or long term and, and moving to a different home we’ve come across that a couple times. So I just thought, you know, people always wonder what’s going on. There’s one.

Tego:

Yeah, no that on it, that, that, that is. And boy, we could go deep on that, that subject, that there’s been a lot of conversation nationally about, you know, all these investors buying up the homes and keeping ’em from, from the first time home buyers that may be true in some markets. We’re not maybe a little bit, but, but in our market, that’s, that’s not the case. It’s most of the, you know, investors are small, all operators that have a few properties and you know, the thing is we need rental properties just as badly or maybe even more than we do resale properties from a, from a supply demand standpoint. It’s

Tracy:

True. You know, remember, I don’t know, eight, 10 years ago now American homes for rent was buying up every house in the market that was around 200,000. Yep. Those houses are all in the rental pool still and they’re back buying houses. So interesting.

Tego:

When I look at the stats on, on owner occupied versus non-owner occupied. So rental properties or corporate owned, we’re still actually below national average on those. Right. I don’t have the exact numbers, but let’s say 15, 20% of all the homes are corporate own or non-owner occupied. And nationally it’s, it’s higher than net, closer to 30%. So, you know, we’re, we’re in a good, good place there. So, so go ahead, trace.

Tracy:

So one of the things though, you know, we’re talking about that and some people are keeping their homes, but we have also had kind of this influx of property managers, not property managers, mom, and pop rental home owners who are feeling like, Hey, I’m, I’m done with this being a property manager. Yeah. And they’re taking advantage of it being a seller’s market and netting, the most they can for their rental houses or properties, some of ’em are duplexes, four plexes or bigger, but most of the people that have called us to help the them sell their investment properties and homes are, you know, they have one or two or three and they’re ready to cash in and use that money for other things. So if you’re thinking of selling some rental properties, give us a ring and we can help you with that. For sure. Obviously, welcome home abq.com. Oh yeah. Number one site like Eddie says on our intro. Very nice. Meaning it’s the most used of now, you know, local websites yeah. For real estate. But the easiest thing is call us on our, our phone four, four eight, eight, eight, eight, eight. Obviously that’s in the 505, but it’s 448-8888. And we can certainly see how we help you. Even if you just have a question about real estate.