Real Information vs. The Media
A few weeks ago Mom and I were watching the Buffini Mid Year Update Video that Brian Buffini does every July. He talked about the most searched keywords on google and said, “Google searches asking about a real estate market crash shot up exponentially in the past few months,” stated Brian Buffini, founder and chairman of Buffini & Company. “The truth is that this is not a bubble, and although the housing market is hot, low interest rates, fixed mortgages, increased homeowner equity and a shortage of inventory are keeping it on solid ground.”
Why is that question a hot question on google? The media has made it a habit of scaring people in one direction with false information. Brian Buffini is spot on as usual, in addition to what he said the amount of work/paperwork that lenders are requiring buyers to provide to qualify for a loan is very in depth when it’s all said and done. So why is the media trying to scare us?
In a separate article; Lawrence Yun the Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors and frequent guest on the Brian Buffini Mid Year and End of Year Bold Predictions gave a unique prospective: All the buyers that were pushed out of the market in 2020 and 2021 are ready to get back in the mix. The “army of buyers” as Yun put it are coming, and they are eager and ready.
When the media scares us we go to google. So I decided to give it a try and searched “housing crash 2021” on google, boy there are a-lot of opinions and experts that no one has heard of…. the first page of results were mixed reviews from real estate investment groups and most articles were trying to scew the housing sales decrease in the 2nd quarter of 2021 as a “sign” of things to come. Many saying it means the real estate market is cooling off. Let me know if you find the rock those guys are hiding under so I can give them some real data. Home sales decreased in the 2nd quarter of 2021 because there weren’t any homes to sell! Inventory is still ridiculously low, less than 0.9 months here in the Richmond area.
New Construction continues to battle lumber prices and high demand. Lumber prices skyrocketed more than 300% between April 2020 and May 2021, causing the average price of a new single-family home to increase by nearly $36,000 that according to the National Association of Home Builders. Side note they have a daily price of lumber per 1000 board feet, pretty cool graph to look at for number guys…
To summarize my rambling: Don’t believe the media, don’t believe the “fake news.” The market is cruising along at a great pace. So please, please, please I encourage you to do your OWN research, or talk to a qualified Realtor that knows the market understands the trends and come up with your own conclusions, make the most educated decision you can based on the TRUTHFUL information and data that is available to you.