Short video transcript providing a May 2015 market update for Northern California real estate. Presenter Andrew Lam describes a hot seller’s market with multiple-offer situations, reduced inventory (≈30% down from six months earlier), and rising interest rate projections; he directs buyers/sellers to online tools and asks viewers to refer potential sellers.
Hey, this is Andrew Lam here. Just wanted to give you a market update for the month of May 2015. So as always, thanks for joining us on our video blog. I wanted to direct your attention to two spots on the blog. Number one, if you are a buyer in the area looking to purchase a home in Northern California, you can click the Search All Homes link. It's a free resource for you. A backstage pass to the mls. You can see everything available, updated every five minutes. And if you are looking to know what your home is worth in today's market, you live here currently. You can click the free home value link and that will let you know in real time what your home is worth today.
And you can interact with that and.
Change some features and watch the value change as well. So it's a really cool tool. If you have any questions, give us a call. Basically, we wanted to give you an update on the market today. It's May 2015 and we've noticed a lot of movement, a lot of action, but we need your help as well. So we'll get to that in a minute. But the market right now is really hot. It seems like every home out there that's in good condition is getting multiple offers. Our buyers are battling multiple offers, but we are certified negotiation experts and typically our clients are coming out ahead. I've had clients win battles where there were 13 offers and six offers. And it's just kind of crazy out there. But you need to know that going in, there's a lot of ways that we can help you save money, because typically price isn't the only thing that matters to a seller as much as terms. So we like to give you all the options there to battle a multiple offer situation. And then if you're a seller, it's a great opportunity right now to sell your home to move up because interest rates are still a lot lower than they've been in the past. And everyone, you know, there's a lot of buyers out there, but not many homes. So we're actually 30% down on our inventory, meaning the number of homes available for sale from November, from six months ago. And November is typically not a time where most people like to move. It's getting close to Thanksgiving and Christmas, so you don't see a lot of movement. And even then, you know, we had a lot more homes on the market than we do now. So it's huge. And this is where I ask you for your help.
If you know of anyone looking to.
Make a move right now, they own a home in Northern California. Please, please reach out to us, let us know so that we can reach out to them. We have so many buyers looking for homes, but there just aren't enough on the market. So we'd love to be able to help your friends and you yourself, if you're one of those people, get the most possible for their home and be able to help our clients out as well. But, yeah, that's where we're at in the market. And just so you know exactly what the projections are for interest rates over the next four quarters, we have this slide put together for you.
So as you can see, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the national association of Realtors, as well as I believe it's the Mortgage Banking association, all believe that interest rates will continue to go up every single quarter. And we're at about 3, 7, 8 right now, but we're definitely most likely going to be over four and a quarter by the end of this year. So if you're looking to make a move, now is definitely the time. While credit availability is still up and while interest rates are still a bit lower than obviously what they're going to be a year from now, they're projecting close to 5%. But a lot of things can actually.
Accelerate that rapid increase.
So we want to make sure, if.
You'Re looking to make a move, that.
You do it sooner rather than later.
So thanks again for joining us on our video blog. If you have any questions at all, if you're looking to buy or sell a home or you just want to get in touch with us, feel free to give us a call, send us an email, and thanks. Have a great day.
