Should You Real Estate When Real Estate is BORING?

I've been in real estate for ::gulp:: 10 years now and it's got me doing a lot of reflecting honestly. Reflecting on past markets, past motivations, current market, current motivations. I had a glass of wine with an old friend last night and was rolling it all around with her and I had a little revelation about the whole thing.

When I first got into real estate people were excited but like, emotionally neutral. There were great deals to be had back then, if you've been around for a while you probably remember these as the "Tuesday's in the Two's" days. I would film homes for under $300,000 in areas you'd want to live, every Tuesday. No one really talked about interest rates (which were around like 4.5-5% generally) but people were getting homes that could afford them the luxury of sweat equity. So people bought sort of crappy little homes and have spent the last 8-10 years fixing them up.

Then Covid happened. Not sure if you remember: global pandemic, interest rates plummeted, life as we knew it; gone in an instant. And the housing market went wild. If you didn't get into a house in the first 5 hours you would miss out on it, people were giving away their firstborn's and dignity to buy homes. Home prices increased in the Salt Lake Valley by 23% during those years. So if you bought before 2020 you were stoooked. During that time many buyers said- uhg, it's too crazy, we're going to wait to buy, when things calm down.

Then interest rates went up. And up. And the housing market cooled down and it's been a bit flatlined since then. If you bought towards the end of 2022 it's possible that your house isn't worth too much more today than when you bought it (but it's proooobably not worth less).

This brings us to today. Currently interest rates are lower than they've been in a year. And no one seems to be talking about it. In fact, I feel like people (the talking heads) really aren't talking too much about real estate at all. Bigger fish to fry, the world is a bit of a hellscape of bad news unfortunately.

Interest rates are at historical lows, there is a ton of inventory around the valley, and no one is talking about it. Why? It's not dramatic, it's not sexy, it's just regular ol' people quietly buying and selling homes because they have to. Seller's homes have't dropped in value but buyers aren't paying out the nose or putting non-refunable money down or well, doing anything crazy and sexy.

So if you have been waiting for a mellow market, a market that isn't flashy and fast paced or dramatic, this might be the market for you.

Which brings me to my motivations, and a little random musing on Realtors in general. If you've made it this far, good for you. I think we Realtors have a little addiction to drama. You meet them all the time, and there are even IG accounts doing parodies of the type I'm talking about. Hair disheveled, headset or airpods always on; ready for the next phone call, crazed look in their eyes as they run around town meeting clients, never eating, tearing around corners on the way to their next showing.

I've been there and those Realtors are still out there. But this market feels like a good time to take a breath, slow down a little, take your transaction one step at a time. No need to panic.

And this is homeownership in a nutshell. Any good real estate investor will tell you that real estate is a long game situation; a slow and steady love, and a slow return. There will be years that your home doesn't seem to increase much in value but it still serves its purpose, it keeps you warm, it keeps you dry, and in a lot of ways you can't put a price tag on that.

So if slow and steady if your jam, and you are in a good place financially, this might be your market. It's not fast or sexy, but it could be your next big stable love.

Love you, mean it.

Annie