Even The Denialists Have Finally Come Around

Abstract

Price reductions are basically like new listings because the home's new price point becomes a new opportunity to a larger pool of buyers. May home sales, as reported by the multiple listing agency in the region, show the quantity of homes sold on par with April - either slightly up or slightly down - but in all but one community, median prices are down. Boulder, which has led the region in home prices, saw 53 homes sell in May, down from 57 in April. "During the four weeks in June, an average 6.5% of homes for sale each week had a price drop, a record high since Redfin began to track the data in 2015. "'The unusual market conditions of the pandemic have come to an end,' Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told USA TODAY. 'The sellers just need to understand that whatever last year's price was, they cannot just boost up prices by another 20%. They would not find buyers using that philosophy. In Salt Lake City, Utah, which saw a 56% appreciation in home prices in two years, from $356,000 in May 2020 to $556,000 in 2022 46% of the homes listed this year reduced their asking price, says Snow." "'When the interest rates got up over 5%, the buyers kind of stopped,' he says. "An elegant 5,500 square-foot home set on nearly four acres in Bridgehampton came onto the market almost exactly a year ago with an asking price of $21.9 million.