Home Sellers Hold Out Hope While Buyers Pull Back

Guys, I have something interesting here today. An article from realtor.com shows that the buying mood for real estate is actually rising. It is as high as never in the year 2025. And the numbers you see here are interesting. They come from the Fannie Mae Index for the Buying Mood for Real Estate. This has apparently risen from 69.22 to 73.5 and thus reached the highest level of the whole year. If you compare this with our market, this is the main selling season here in the whole country. Our main selling season usually goes from January to May. Sometimes it can go up to June. But basically it's spring and summer everywhere else, including for the buyers. So I don't find it all too surprising that the mood is as high as never in this year. I would really like to know that. Oh, there it is. Yes, this is apparently the highest level since March 2022. I don't read my own notes before I go out. Guys, I just post such things. I do them spontaneously. Thank you. Thank you for your patience with me. This is the highest percentage of people who think so since March 2022. The mood index consists of six components. Basically, people are asked what the mood of buyers and sellers is like. How do you feel about the worries about the workplace? Do you expect lower mortgage interest rates? Do you have a more positive outlook on real estate prices? And do you see a change in your household income? And based on the answers of the people, this real estate mood index is created. I don't know how valuable this value is to anyone. It seems a bit strange and the methodology is a bit inconsistent. But in May 2025, only 26% of the people asked said that now was a good time to buy a house. This means that 74% of them were of the opinion that this was not the case. This number has been constantly above 70% in the last three years. And of course you are responsible for the increased mortgage interest rates. Every part of the country will have to deal with its own challenges. Here you will find out why this is the case and why this is happening. But yes, the increased mortgage interest rates will definitely contribute to this. We know what buyers think. What do sellers think according to this survey? Surprisingly, the trust of the sellers in May has also improved. The share of respondents who said it was a good time to sell rose from 58% to 61%. This is a small contradiction. They say that the buying mood has increased, but all respondents say that it was a bad time to buy if you are a buyer. All sellers say it was a better time to sell. So it's mixed signals. And that's exactly what brings us into these stagnating markets. People think it's because of mortgage interest rates. I don't think so. I think it's because of the buyers and sellers who are simply too far apart in reality. And sometimes the buyers in some markets are not really like that. Most of the time it seems to be about sellers who cannot agree, because both parties feel like they have to win. And that will unfortunately not happen, especially here, where there are so many offers. In other parts of the country, this is quite different. As far as mortgage interest rates are concerned, 70% of respondents said they did not expect mortgage interest rates to change in the next 12 months. I think people have come to terms with it. There has been a lot of FOMO in the last two years. They held the FOMO upright with the words, that the rate, marry the house, by now, will be out for forever. In many places this has not come true. In some cases, they don't get me wrong, but they were able to hold this FOMO upright for a while. And that's kind of funny, because that's Funnymice's buying mood index. But let's take a look at some articles that Funnymice published a few years ago about mortgage interest rates. Okay, guys, let's take a look at this article from August 2022. This is Funnymice again. Her estimation of how mortgage interest rates would develop at the time. Mortgage interest rates will fall to 4.5% in 2023. This is Funnymice's estimate. That's kind of crazy. In the week of June 23, the interest rates were on average at 5.5%. That looks like a great interest rate. That's a clear increase compared to the 3.22% in January 2022. That's a slight decline compared to the 5.81% high. As we know, they are now above 7. But you know, back then they said, Oh, don't worry, 4.5% will come. We have 2022. In 2024, mortgage interest rates will fall below 6% according to Funnymice. Published on January 25, 2024. The interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan will probably be 5.8% by the end of the year. Oh dear. Those are Funnymice's predictions. Some other current forecasts for mortgage interest rates include that interest rates will remain above 6%. Well, we know who was right in the end. That's Funnymice's prediction. And you were already a little more optimistic than other sources in some points. That's pretty crazy for me. People, to see that you basically screamed from the rooftops that mortgage interest rates would drop. Just buy now, don't worry. Mortgage interest rates will drop every month. You've been doing that for two years. We talked a lot about it and got six interest rates, which at the time was considered complete nonsense. The general public now seems to believe that the interest rates will remain at the current level. Who knows what will happen next? That could mean that they are actually going down now. But the general public says, I don't buy more house than I can afford, just because I expect a refund. That drives the spread beyond areas like South West Florida, where hurricanes, insurances and financing costs are not just the prices that make this a nationwide problem. The distribution of the people who were of the opinion that the prices would develop in one direction or another is very interesting. They did not indicate who it was, whether it was sellers or buyers, but 45% of all respondents expected rising real estate prices. Eh, probably the sellers. 21% expected a return, probably the buyers, and 34% were of the opinion that they would not move at all. Many media have recently highlighted that the buyers on the real estate market are gaining power again. Every area is different. We know, you have it safe here. Only with extremely cheap houses it looks different, otherwise it will probably stay that way for a while. And an article by Axios is titled, it is a buyer's market, if you can afford it. And that's exactly the problem. It has to do with interest rates. The financing costs for some of these houses are simply crazy even at very high interest rates. We had such a fast inflation. That's crazy, that's crazy. And when you say buyer's market, people and I say buyer's market, then that does not mean that it is a market that you should just buy on. It just means that buyers have more influence on the market. The buyers and sellers overtake the buyers. That's all it really means. Buyers have more influence. As you know, we have reached historical highs. I think there is a discrepancy of 500,000 to 500,000 houses between the number of sellers and the number of buyers. There are currently 500,000 more sellers than buyers. According to this article, this is the largest ever recorded gap. No idea how long you have records. Sometimes they only last until 2016. But for the time a few years ago, when the buyers desperately looked for a home and pushed the prices up, that's a big difference. How fast things can change and it doesn't feel fast when it takes years. I understand that. That doesn't happen overnight. This is not a crypto correction or a crypto crash. There will be no 90% setbacks overnight. Whether there are 90% setbacks, I don't know. Unclear whether 50% setbacks occur. I have no idea where the bottom line is. As I said, it's a slow process and more and more people are becoming aware of the situation. More and more sellers, more and more buyers. They say there are 33% more sellers than buyers. At no other time since Redfin started recording in 2013, there has been such a large percentage of more sellers than buyers. These are the numbers. It's been at least 12 years since we've seen such a strong buyer market. It's much worse here nationwide. I mean, it's been like this in many areas since 2009. The supply is absolutely crazy. What do we have here? Looks pretty new. Huh? 5217th. We'll see. Okay. Guys, we have 950 for this house. That's actually less than the previous million dollars. About a month ago, the price was lowered by $50,000. We have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, 204 square meters. Building year 2020, so a new building, but not entirely new. Okay. So we know what it looks like from the outside. Inside, beautiful high ceilings. Many houses in this style are built in this area. There are many of these almost exact replicas in the area of Gekaff and Essauf Gekaff. Nice that you have finished the workroom here. Yes, you can see many kitchens in this exact style down there. All from different builders. It's as if they had almost the same floor plan that they copy, but every time from other builders. That was very popular in 2020 and still is today. Okay. All right. What does the ground floor look like? I know that people don't like wire shelves for a million dollars. As you have already mentioned in the comments, people don't stand on wire shelves for a million dollars. The laundry has a decent size. We have an outdoor kitchen out here. No. But we can install one. I would like to see one. Eh. The pool is a large pool area. A pool of decent size. Looks like you have your pool bath back there. Here's another memory. Here you can set up the outdoor kitchen. Guys. So you get an elevator and an elevator. And as you can see, you are right on the ground floor. So the situation is great. Garage for three cars. Let's see how much they started. Okay. So they started at 1.75 million almost a year ago in September. Eh. 2.5% price drop to 1.50 million. 5% to 990 million. And another 5% to 949 million. Okay. And for everyone who is wondering, I would like to show everyone where this is in the big city of Florida. You see. This is the Makah River. Charlotte Harbor. Out to the Gulf. But this is where you would be. Okay. Hey. People. Let me know in the comments below what you think of the prices for this house. And look at this. God. Is this place beautiful. A few beautiful houses are being built here. I'm really excited to walk by. But God. I just love the color scheme. The blue and blue and brown. Oh. I once had a room that was painted like this. Here on the other side of the street is a new building. Eh. I don't know if it's already finished. There's a car. But maybe they just moved the plaster stones. Let's take a look at that too. And then we got permission down here. They're probably working on this house. Who knows what happened. Oh. That's kind of cool. They have a kind of free-standing cabana. What a view. Man. The Makah again here today. People. So still down in Gekaf. I've probably mentioned that several times. I'm trying to tell you where I am because everyone gets angry when I don't. But here is the river. So not a bad place to start. You can see in the distance. That's the bridge right there. And there's another, unconventional, beautiful house by the water. So a mix of new and old. A really good mix in this area, depending on which block you live in. But it's interesting. My cabana is really cool. Man. My new V-cuts are not breathable. They're supposed to fit Deadbot. I don't know. We'll see. But they limit the airflow. So we'll stay up to the chest. You don't want to see what it looks like down there. But that's it for today. People.