By Vanessa Saunders, MBA, MIMC , Broker Owner, Global Property Systems Real Estate.

Ask any Realtor in the Hudson Valley real estate market who’s sold a house recently if they’ve seen bidding wars between buyers and you’ll hear some horror stories. But nothing is as horrific as what’s going on in other parts of the country where supply and demand has blown the roof off bidding wars and made competing for homes a new kind of blood sport.

Inman News reported today that homes in California, the Los Angeles area in particular, are getting offers of six figures over asking price. Inman recounted the story of“a Los Angeles-area agent working with first time buyers who told how her clients eventually found a house they loved in L.A.’s Glassell Park neighborhood. The asking price was $799,000 for the two bedroom, one bath home “in need of“a little TLC”.

“We offered $80,000 over asking and I thought for sure we had it,” the agent recalled.
But they didn’t have it. In fact, they weren’t even close.The agent told Inman that when she called the listing agent, she learned there were a total of 39 offers on the property, which spanned just 1,000 square feet. And in the end, it sold for $223,000 over the asking price. The L.A. market is always kind of brutal, but the agent said the way things played out “shocked everybody.”
“Normally there’s 13, maybe up to 20 offers,” the agent explained. “But 39 is bonkers.”

Bonkers or not, highly competitive bidding wars increasingly appear to be the rule rather than the exception in markets all over the U.S. this summer, including the Hudson Valley. According to Inman, "Economists have suggested real estate caught fire in recent months amid the coronavirus pandemic thanks to multitudes of people wanting to move in the face of shrinking supply. And the anecdotal evidence bears that out; Inman spoke with a dozen agents for the story, and every single one of them described unusually competitive conditions.”

As a broker in the Hudson Valley, I have to remind everyone that this is not normal, and isn’t going to last forever. At some point, there will be a market correction, supply will open up, values will fall to realistic levels, and there will be people who paid too much for their home “left holding the baby,” as they say.

And also as they say, when one door closes, another will open. It is significant that Manhattan rental vacancy rates reached their highest level in 14 years and the number of new lease signings fell to their lowest level in nearly a decade in the second quarter of this year. Roughly 5 percent of residents — or about 420,000 people — left the city between March 1 and May 1. In the city’s very wealthiest blocks, in neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, the West Village, SoHo and Brooklyn Heights, residential population decreased by 40 percent or more.

So if you’re planning to take advantage of the Hudson Valley’s seller’s market and put your home up for sale, let me know. I can get you a great little apartment on the Upper East Side.

To find out more about selling your home, or for more information, CONTACT US.