“We’re excited about the upcoming spring season,” says Vince Range, chairperson of Tri-County REALTORS in Malvern. "Inventory's been tight but new listings numbers were up across the region for January, and average days on market held steady at 22, compared with the previous month. The Tri-County area currently has 180 more listings since the beginning of the year, compared to December 2021.”
Vince says buyers seem to still be willing to pay above-asking prices, and active listings are receiving multiple offers. He adds that the summer market appears to be heading toward being a strong seller’s market due to low supply.
In addition to existing home sales, Vince notes that rental prices continue to have a higher premium due to the lack of rental inventory. Nationally, median rental prices rose 19.8% year-over-year in January. For comparison, the monthly costs of buying a home with up to two bedrooms have seen an 11% year-over-year jump, according to Realtor.com.
Vince says new construction sales are taking longer to get to settlement due to short supply of materials, but that challenge slowly has improved.
Bucks County Realtor Christopher Beadling and president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors says quite a bit of how the real estate market will fare during summer months is dependent on what could be deemed 'COVID comfort levels.' He explains that while economics plays a large role in the formula, such as mortgage rates affected by the interest rates set by Federal Reserve officials on March 17, individual comfort levels have been affecting whether some would-be home sellers will allow public guests into their homes.
"We're all feeling the market out every day, tracking multiple factors. But one factor that's changed is that some employees who were working from home temporarily have been given the green light to work from home permanently. Those employees may then be seeking to move into larger space residences, so they have office space," says Christopher.
Christopher says the shortage of new home construction that started during 2008-2009 is still impacting overall inventory.
