Market Monday Snapshot June 2026

More choices for buyers. Homes taking longer to sell. Pending sales dropping. Prices still climbing. So… what exactly is going on with the Upstate New York real estate market?

In this episode of the Living You Podcast, Rich and Jessica dig into the June 2026 numbers and take a broader look at the first half of the year. But as always, the numbers are only part of the story. We talk about what we're actually seeing on the ground, the challenges buyers and sellers are facing, and what these changing market conditions could mean moving forward.

Is this simply a healthier, more balanced market—or are we starting to see a real correction in Upstate New York? 

The living you podcast is a conversation about life, real estate, and the journey of living you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, out there in podcast land, you are once again trapped with Rich Santos and Jess Muletto on another invigorating episode on our Living You podcast. So we're excited to jump into some numbers. This episode, we will be talking about June, uh, really the first half of 2026, and breaking down what the heck is going on. But first, Rich, how has it been this summer, Living You?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

It's been great, Jess, and I'm excited for this podcast. I'm excited to go over some half-year numbers. But uh recently I was reflecting on like a concept of marketing and culture. All right, so bear with me. So a couple days ago, I was at the grocery store, and you know how they make those like rotisserie chickens like pre pre-cooked, right? And they're they're juicy and delicious. So I don't get them frequently, but occasionally when I'm in the mood and and I don't have a plan for the evening, I'll grab one for a meal and they're nice for leftovers and whatnot. Nowadays they make all kinds of cool flavors, right? So I picked up this one and it's it's dill pickle rotisserie chicken. Now, I think like summer of 2025 was like the season of dill pickle flavors on everything, if I remember correctly, and uh clearly it's it's it's continuing through. But I've never personally had a dill pickle chicken before, um, which was actually not that great. I I think mine was a little overdone and it didn't imbue with all the flavors. Regardless, that's not my point. But as I was driving home, I was thinking about we're lay we're labeling all this stuff dill pickle in the flavor profile. But isn't just isn't like the dill doing the heavy lifting here, like it couldn't we just call this like a dill rotisserie chicken? What what makes it like what makes it dill pickle? Or what makes the chips like dill pickle chips, right? Do you know what I'm saying? Like I feel like the pickle is getting a lucky ride on the back of the heavy lifting of the dill.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Of the dill. No, I think you're exactly right on that because yeah, I mean, as someone that likes to can things in my garden, we just decided to do dilly beans for the first time, uh, which is basically just dill pickle juice, well, brine, that you can your fresh uh string beans in. And for sure, you can do pickling without dill. So you're right. You could do a bread and butter. There's other additives, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Absolutely. There's other types of pickling flavors to choose from. They're not all dill. I personally don't love dill, so I probably wouldn't have picked up a dill pickle uh anything. And that, you know, so for me, the dill doesn't do the heavy lift except for, hey, I'm not gonna eat this today. Um, but I do love pickles overall. Of the garlic.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

I just I got him this whole this whole mental roller coaster of like, if I buy those dill pickled potato chips, which I am prone to do, like, am I getting them? I don't know. It's just the marketing departments, they're really going in the pickle mode, which I feel like the dill is anyway. It's just just marketing, words, language, words matter to me. And I was like, the pickle is getting a free ride here, honestly. It's the it's the dill that's the hero.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

But well, I think, and I'm the opposite where I think the pickle's the hero, because I could live without dill. I love it. I love that there are all these different things.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Is there pickle flavor without the dill? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Anyway, yeah, there is. There's pickle flavor without the dill. Because that's the pickle flavor I prefer. Because you have like the sweet gherkins. That's not dill. They're the little sweet.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

But there's something that's giving them the sweetness, right? It would be like sugar or okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

It could be sugar, yeah, whatever you want. Like anything. All right. I will say though that if you're gonna go for flavored potato chips, you need to go for the jalapeno ones. That's just me.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Jalapenos are good, for sure. Yeah, salt and vinegar, jalapeno, for sure. Um, although I'm trying to be good and I'm trying to reduce the amount of potato chips in my life because uh we can all be we can all be a little bit more diligent. Okay, so that's I don't know, that's just a journey in my brain. Diligent. This whole this whole intro has been quite a pickle. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Not only that, my brother used to call me a dillweed when I was little. So you stupid dillweed. Oh, like why is that a bad thing? Like, it could be good to be a dillweed, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

It's true. Quick growing and flavorful. I don't have an idea.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Right. Makes a mean pickle. Dillweed. All right. All right. So that's out of our system.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

We're gonna yeah, we're gonna go into our our market data now. And so honestly, we're we're switching gears a little bit. In the past, I've like shared a screen here, and you and I have looked at it. I'm throwing this to you, by the way, uh on the fly, but that f messes me up a little bit. I can't see you. It feels less less like organic in the moment. So I've printed out a couple of the take-home points from the data that we normally look at, and I'm just gonna kind of read through and note things. So you'll be a little hamstrung here, Jess, without visual references, but I think we can handle it because we've we've talked about this stuff pretty much monthly for years now. Um so again, uh anyone tuning in for the first time or getting used to this, we have through our local multiple listing service, we get data. We use this to talk about what's happening in our it's a pretty large geographic area, but there's still not a ton of sales happening, so we have to be careful with statistics because it's not like statewide or nationwide numbers. Um so some some small outliers can skew that to some degree. But anyway, let's let's dive into it. So we compare sometimes two different things this month, this year, compared to this month last year, and now that we're we have six months of 2026 information all the way through June, we can look at kind of like half-year trends, right? And that's how you you introduced this, and that's where we're gonna go. So, okay, so June of 26 compared to June of 25. Let's go through some key points, Jess, and then I'll I'll let you actually I'll do this the stat breakdown, two blocks, the the June, June, and then the the first six months, and then we'll we'll dissect it. Okay. So just real quick high-level stuff. New listings are down 3.6% from last June. Interesting, because we're hearing listings are up, up, up. But actually, last June was a little bit stronger. Pending sales, however, are 30% down, Jess. Only 84 properties went into contract in June in our entire MLS, or at least houses went into contract. Um, closed sales through compared to last June are up 7%, 98 closed sales. Days on market is up 31% to 71 days. So properties are taking longer to sell compared to last summer. And this is the one that we always find interesting. Locally, our median and average prices are up, up, up, up, up, 20% for the median, 20.5% for the median, 20% for the average sale price. Uh, that's again compared to last June. And then list price received, however, is down a percentage, so we're down to 95.5%. Housing affordability is dropping down 12.8% further, which was already an unaffordable metric, and now we're down even further. Um, and going so a lot of stuff is contrasting. The pending sales were low, that means less stuff is being could taken off market, and we just saw that some things are continuing to go on the market. So, our our month supply, meaning if everyone was to buy everything on the market available, we have this metric, and it's now up to six and a half months supply, up 30% from five-month supply last year. So now, generally, real estate uses a six-month supply as kind of this balanced market barrier, and now we're above it. So, that means that in theory, our local market is trending towards buyer, you know, like not power, but you know, buy buyer favorable dynamics.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

That's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

So that's the local June compared to last June, and then super quick, the the first 12 months of the year breakdown, we're up listings by 11%, we're down pending sales by 2%. So we're not lagging last year too much, but last year was a slow real estate year. So I don't really want that to be the metric that we compare ourselves by, and we're down from that. And June was down 30%. So I think the question for you would be are we trending, are we stalling out? That's the question to revisit in a second. Closed sales, though, for six months are up by 16% from last year. So again, we started hot, but I think I think we're slowing down. Leave that up to you to add your nuggets of wisdom. Uh, we said days on market was up, and again, the median and average prices are both up eight, eight percent for average price, almost 15% for median price. So this uh and then list price received is down to about 95%, and the affordability is down. So I I just threw a lot at you real quick, and I know you're not looking at it, but of that sort of broad categorical opening stanza there, what what stands out to you as like what should we watch? What should what should what can we derive from that? And where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So uh yeah, and that was a great summary, and we might want to go back and just hit each one a little finer and more detail. Um, I mean, my as you were kind of talking, you know, pending sales down, inventory seems to be down as well, but I do think we had this pile on of inventory, you know, kind of late spring, early summer, um, where everything just got listed. Where again, it's could be our fault as agents telling people the best time to list is the spring. So everybody put all their inventory on, fast and furious, um, and then you know, seeing things are are sitting, I mean, that's what we're experiencing, days on market a little bit longer, which we've been saying that's gonna happen when there's more choice and the affordability is down. So those three points really stood out to me, but it's not really different than what we've talked about, and not really different than what we expected. Um you know, uh no one has a crystal ball, but being prepared and saying, you know, when is the other shoe gonna drop? Like I've said in the past, like we've just had this increase of values, which does seem is still happening though, like you also said. Yeah, so we do have this kind of pile on of inventory, pending sales are down, but prices, what is selling is still going, you know, going up. So all very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

It is interesting, and this is one where, you know, it isn't the market isn't just numbers. There's a lot more behind these that I think make them either seem more powerful in some some dimensions than others. But uh here's what I think happened. I I think a lot of property owners in the last two or three years saw that prices were continuing to go up and they knew that they were kind of in that that power position of low inventory, and they probably were, you know, a lot of people don't always need to sell today. So it's a little bit of like planning, like future planning, right? And so it's like, well, if we wait one more year or two more years, you know, not that everyone wants to like hit the peak of the market, but there is some semblance of, hey, the ride is good right now, why not we ride this out a little bit longer? Maybe next spring we'll list. And we are very seasonal, you can't help it, right? We we just sell less in January, February because it's cold, it's not as fun and easy to show properties. So, regardless of market, it's always gonna be higher in the spring and summer. But I think a lot of people who maybe have been thinking of selling put on like spring of 2026, that's the time we're gonna do it. And that happened to be coinciding with when you know some global economic things are happening, right? Buyers are hit with higher mortgage because rates were trending down for quite a while. We were just under six percent for a little bit, and it was trending like getting lower, and then you know, we have some conflict, things happen, and then prices increase for all of our goods, and we're hit with uh you know, we're hit with higher mortgage rates. We're now up into the 6.8% range right now on a residential mortgage. That's a significant difference in your the same property with a a one one percent mortgage rate difference is a is a big monthly payment gap, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:09

And I'm waiting for that to drive prices down. I mean, you know, I'm waiting for buyers to make those lower offers, but I think you know, it takes a long time for the consumer to get the trend to them. So they're still hearing, oh, it's highest and best, oh, I'm getting full price, oh, people are going, you know, buyers are going crazy. They're still kind of hearing those stories from the you know, it's it's trickling down maybe, but they're still hearing those things. So how long is it gonna take for people to go, oh, okay, we're really not in that super competitive market anymore, and you know, the uh offers are gonna start coming down. But if when buyers are very serious and they want a property, they're acting on the information we've had for the last three to six months, right? Because their friend bought three months ago, and their friend is telling them, well, you better put full ask in or you're not gonna get it. I mean, you know, so I think we're still operating on day-to-day old data. The market moves very, very fast. And again, no one has that crystal ball, so we try to watch this month to month, try to maybe make some kind of a prediction, but we're always operating behind. We're always behind the curve. So as it's changing today, how is it going to change? Is it I'm hoping at the end of August, all of a sudden the buyers come back in the game. You know, usually there's a seasonality of the summer drops out a little bit, and then we have a fall market because people really want to get this done before the end of the year, and then we go to sleep, which I don't recommend people do, but they go to sleep for the winter. So it will again kind of trickle down from that.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Yeah, those are all those are all great points. Yeah, I I think the one to keep the biggest eye on is this this big decrease in pending sales. I mean, again, that means people going into a contract. I I know that you know it doesn't take more than a few seconds of searching in an MLS for any given buyer, you know, avatar, any price range, cheap, middle, high, super high, whatever. It doesn't matter. You look at the the the search and you're gonna see a lot more options now than you did a year ago. I just anecdotally, you just know it. There's like a ton more available, and that means buyers have more selectability, it means they have more negotiability, it means they can pin down what they're looking for, and if they find the thing they're looking for, they can still be aggressive, and that one property might be what everyone's looking for, and it might still get multiple offers, and it might go over asking price. This still happens, but it's gotta be a listing that's pretty dialed in, it's gotta be pretty aggressive in its price point, and it's gotta, you know, it's gotta be the kind of property that people say this feels like home right now. Uh, I think most things that are fixer-uppers or rough or aren't being cared for, they tend to that like little bit of deferred maintenance, that little bit of lack of like right now care. It doesn't mean you didn't love your home, by the way. Like, every home was loved at some point, but everyone, time catches up with them, and sometimes when they decide to pull the trigger on selling, it's starting to show that couple seasons of I haven't touched the gutter, I haven't touched the sidewalk, I haven't scraped that that deck, whatever, you know, that stuff that's that just visually catches up with you, and you think, ugh, what else is old and tired and unmaintained about this house? And that's gonna hurt your your sale your your sale point, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Well, again, when we talk about affordability, right? So the interest rates, 6.8, all that stuff. So if a buyer sees work, like I'm gonna pay, you know, out my face for this house monthly, and then I gotta do a roof, and then I gotta paint this, and then I gotta fix the deck, and then I have to do the garage, and then I have to put a floor down, and then yeah, so that's that's a thing. So those houses eventually, you know, uh depending on what it is, again, because there are some very unique properties that people will buy, even if they look like a bomb went off, they they'll they'll sell, but those properties may start to tick down in value, you know, and and sit a little longer and and not be as um you know possible for especially first-time home buyers. And we've done we've done this so long. Um we we had that interesting uh statistic come up, I think, from from late last year, that like the average first-time buyer was like in their 40s.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yes, I think it was 45.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

And that goes to show you, um, and it's funny because right after that, first-time buyer in his 50s, first-time buyer couple in their 60s, they have just been renting in Long Island. I'm like, how are you still alive? That sounds crazy. Like, were you in some kind of rent stabilized unicorn? Because how is that working? And they're looking up here now. So, yeah, so the affordability, I think, is the biggest thing to always watch because if a buyer can't afford it, they're they're not buying it. So you want to, as a seller, you know, maximize obviously, you know, the wealth you've created in your home. We want you to get as much money as possible. Believe me when I tell you, any listing agent you sit with, if they can get you a million dollars, they will. Most of the time, they can't. So our job is to get you as much as possible. And I think there's there's kind of a responsibility in that as well. Um, because I've had a lot of people say, like, oh, well, the city, it's the people from downstate will just pay it. That might be fine, but now you've priced out your neighbor, you've priced out your local community. Um, so I'm a I'm actually an advocate for the correction. I'm an advocate for a buyers having choice, buyers having things be more affordable. I love that my sellers are making money, and they don't if no one can buy it. So there has to be a balance in the market, and this is what we've been kind of waiting for. Um I think it kind of slapped us silly and kind of landed in a really ugly way, but we're in it, we're navigating it, it'll smooth out, it'll be fine. Um, but yeah, this is this is exactly what we we knew we were gonna get at some point.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

100%. This was inevitable at some point. You we, especially our little pocket, right? You this is a national truth you're saying, but our pocket has really maintained those consistent price increases for five years now, since the end of COVID, and it never really slowed down. That's what's the shock. Most parts of the country experienced that in that period, and then it kind of like stalled out. And a lot of a lot of regions had price reductions a year ago. But what's happening in some of those Jess, they're actually rebounding back up now. So they had their like trough last summer or last fall, and now prices are coming back up and and people are the equity is building again. So I don't know if we're headed into a pure trough. I actually think our region is pretty resilient in that. I just think that the price growth is going to marginally plateau, you know, compared to other areas. I say that, but then you look at the data, and the data says that our average price just keeps skyrocketing.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Because we're still in one of the cheapest regions in the country. We still are one one of the cheapest regions, which again I I say I have said that before, but that surprised me being at Keller Williams and having national and global statistics, and Gary Keller stood there and was like, Well, the Northeast has the lowest priced real estate in the country. Okay, so people do move here from you know all over, especially from downstate, but you know, people do move here because this is what's affordable right now, and every day it gets less affordable, but compared to everything else right now, it is it is affordable somehow, and then New York is like the most expensive state to live in, generally speaking. And I know that the city is lumped in with the country and it skews those numbers, but it's a weird, again, another weird dynamic we experience as New Yorkers. This is the cheapest real estate in the country, and then the most expensive, you know, state uh to live in. I think one of the last articles actually said that New York is one of the most unaffordable. So we have to just be responsible, I think, as realtors, and you know, may help to maintain that balance, help to educate. When you have a realtor and they are up on the market stats and the local stuff happening, they can keep you ahead. So I can say to a buyer right now, we don't have to jump on this because things like this are sitting, because that's what I'm seeing in the numbers, and that's been the experience we have, right? So having that realtor that can say, listen, let's look at another one, let's go back to that other one. You've got a minute. Don't jump. Um, give people really time to consider because if they get in that house and they can't afford it, that's literally the worst thing that can happen. That's literally the worst thing we can do.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yes, I uh I feel that. I mean, always client first, always, right? And we can't we can't crystal ball predict what their life will be like or what will happen to the the economy in the future, but we can certainly hopefully point you in a direction of a sensible decision that will not put you like on the brink of of financial difficulty if things don't go your way. And there's a lot of people a second ago. Yeah, you don't want you don't want to be You can't I would personally I would rather in fact I'm living I'm living in it, right? I I probably could have afforded more house when I bought this house four years ago, but I decided it was a strategic decision. I don't know my future. I am a in a commission-based industry, I don't know. I'm growing, my business is growing, but you just never know. And well, B, I don't mind living in a little bit of a fixer upper for a few years, but I chose to kind of under under purchase with knowing that I would have a relatively low running cost for my home between the mortgage and the expenses. And you know what, I can always upgrade or move in the future to something bigger and better if I feel like it. But I've been pleased with that decision, even though what you see behind me is decent looking. The rest of my house is very like very like 1900s wallpaper and you know, like we peeling paint and stuff. I don't mind it. I think it's kind of quirky and trauma. Show us charming.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Oh, give us the tour.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

But anyway, the point is like I like not. Not everyone has that either desire or or the ability to kind of just honestly just live with projects that are in your face constantly. You know, there's 17 things that every time I walk to my kitchen, I'm like, I should do that, I should do that, I should do that. You either live with it and say, I'll get to it at some point, or you're unhappy, and I'm not unhappy. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Yeah. You just triggered me on something a whole other commentary that we don't have to spend a lot of time on. But I think traditionally people had more skills in terms of maintaining their home. They could fix the things, you know, themselves. And I'm not saying like do your own electric. I'm saying please hire somebody for that kind of thing. But you could literally rent floor sanders, like me and Joe did it, 350 bucks. So we rented floor sanders and we bought stain, and we in three days did the entire upstairs of our last house ourselves. Like rather than paying the guy quoted me like $10,000 to put hardwood floors down. I'm like, why don't we just sand the shit we have? So also I think you know, and a lot of people work. A lot of people are working professionals where they don't have those skill sets that they're they can paint or they can't. Yeah, most people are working professionals or they have computer jobs or domestic jobs. Yeah, or data jobs, and yeah, they don't have the time and they weren't taught that. We're not taught these vital skills anymore. Like even canning, the way our grandparents like lived, the way our great grandparents lived and conserved, and I know they had to go through the Great Depression, which probably prompted some of this, but sometimes you gotta live like that. Sometimes don't live outside of your means and learn a skill, like change the bulb yourself. Like we don't have that anymore. But if you did that, I think those types of skills go a long way and build value in your home and also could allow you to get afford something a little bit less because you know you can throw some elbow grease in there.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

That's a that's such a good point. Um can I tell you a quick, a quick another anecdote? There's too many anecdotes for me today, but okay. And I don't want to say too much because this is a is still an in-process thing, but I have a property on the market, it's in contract. The the appraisal from the lender came back and it flagged a couple small things to remedy, right? So the seller decided to take it on their own and remedy these things. Now these sellers are not local to the property, they're not able to get there themselves. And I I don't think I failed them per se, but I I didn't realize what was going to happen. So the the flag was for a basic handrail on like a there's like a an accessibility ramp into the front front of the structure. And so there's a handrail that was really rotted out. And so the the appra the bank said, you know, we we need this fixed before we can approve the loan. And it was like it's not a big, it's not a big handrail. And so they called their local handy person and and said they were gonna do the job. When once the job was completed, and I got called by the seller and said, It's all done, you can have the appraiser go back and finish that up. And then they're like, it cost me a thousand dollars. And at first I'm like, okay, now I don't know the scope of work this person did. Maybe they like rebuilt the whole ramp, maybe they did a whole brand new railing, but really the part that was specifically cited was like just this top, like the top board, like the board you put your hands on. So I go to the property, Jess, and they literally just had changed out this top. It's like two by fours, it's like three pressure-treated two by fours that they unscrewed, took the old one off, put the new pressure-treated two by four on. It's probably like I don't know, let's call it $80 in lumber, and then probably a 45-minute labor.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

No, $15.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

They charge these poor people uh like a thousand bucks. And and that's where I thought, dude, if I not that I I I have the skills to do that, I just didn't. I'm not a personal, I'm not a property manager, I don't generally do the work, but I could do that. You know, I have a drill, I have a screwdriver, I can like but if I knew that was the scope of work, I could have been like, dude, I'll I'll do this for you for like not I might not even charge you. I could go to the hardware store and get a hundred dollars worth of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah, pay for the screws and pay for the hardware.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

I just felt like at least I didn't at least I didn't recommend this handyman or this person because But that's exactly what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

That's why people will pass up a perfectly beautiful house because it seemingly needs too much work, because people get charged out the ass for little jobs like that. So if you don't have that skill set, if you can't change your own countertops, you know, you you're at the mercy of someone else. So I get that. I don't get that.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

I mean my anecdote is a little sketchy, but I think in general, people are not like trying to get you, but at the same time, their their time is worth money, and when there's only so many skilled laborers available, they kind of get to set their price. And for sure. You know, you could call around to six different people and get their quotes, but a lot of people don't have the bandwidth to track down contractors that don't return calls. I'm not throwing contractors under the bus at all. I just they are in the good ones and there's bad ones. They're in talk about like supply-demand and economics, like they're in demand and they get to set their price. And do you want the project done?

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I I've heard a lot of people say, well, I don't want to buy a fixer-upper because who's gonna fix it? Literally said, Who's gonna fix it? I'm like, wow, that's a thing. In the local communities, they know that. Who's gonna fix it? And a lot of times when I talk to buyers, I actually ask that now can you do some of this work yourself? And if they say yes, I'm like, okay, all right, then I feel confident now. Because I'm not gonna put you in a house that now you can't do this and now it's falling apart around you, and because the affordability is null, you know. Yeah, well, yeah, you yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

And then last thing on like the the running costs of a home, we've talked about insurance previously. We've talked about electric prices have took a big spike last year and they're they're they're maintaining their increased cost. One thing that people around here don't realize is that almost every single home that I'm aware of and every town that I'm aware of locally, you don't have municipal garbage pickup in your taxes, right? So you have to contract with a private business to pick up your garbage if that's a service you want. A lot of bigger cities where I grew up, garbage was like, I don't know, the the town came around every once a week and they they got it. It was included. It's not in our tax base to do garbage pickup. As far as I'm aware, there might be a town or two, but I in our region, everywhere, everyone that I and it's not expensive, but it's still a little thing that you've got to it goes into your budget then, and it's not it's not a tax, you know, it's like one of those discretionary things, but a lot of people don't want to drive their garbage to the dump. A lot of people do, but for some people that's just a convenience, but it it's like another 30 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, whatever, and that that does go into the budget.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Sacrifice your streaming service or some other thing, you know. Yeah, I don't want your life to come down to sacrifices, you know. I I guess that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah, well, that's the whole house poor concept that people talk about. But that because they're just trying to make the payment. I'm just working every day and I'm just stretching myself to make the payment, so there's nothing else left after that. So yeah, we we're we have a responsibility not to put people in that situation. Um and that's why I like doing these numbers. So what stood out to you going back to the market stats, what stood out to you? Because I gave you my three that really stood out, and that's what launched the affordability conversation. Yeah, no, I mean I I think we've pretty much covered it.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I just wanted to talk about the main the main points. I I wrote down a couple of take-home points. So essentially, right now, if you take a snapshot, we have 31% more inventory, more choices for you. But they're also taking 31% longer to sell. So days on market are increasing, buyers are more picky, sellers by default almost have to be either a lot more strategic with pricing or just a lot more patient. It doesn't mean it won't sell, by the way, Jess. It just means it might take a little bit longer for that right person to find that right property. I kind of feel like that's how real estate should be. I don't think a property, I mean, again, everything's relative, but it's a it's a sign of an unhealthy market when every home that goes on the market is has multiple offers in two days, right? That's a that's unhealthy. Yeah, that means there's people begging for a home and they're willing to scratch and claw and fight for it when it might not be right for them. Um, like we just said, it has to be right for you in all the in all the ways. And then uh and the the pending sales going down is the one that I want to keep watching over the next couple months. Normally, summer is where we have our highest contract load. So if we had a June that was significantly lower in contract load, and if we get July results in an in a couple weeks that sh have the same information, then we're looking at a real a real trough in our what usually is our hot summer. And that's a harbinger of I don't think we're in any kind of like crash, but I definitely think we're in a little bit of a correction, and I think it's appropriate, I think it's necessary for our market for the affordability reasons we've talked about. Um so that's my take home. My take home is we're gonna keep watching pendings, we're gonna keep watching if inventory goes up or if it plateaus, and then we'll see if prices at some point stabilize over in our area.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

So advice for a seller's agent right now, what should they tell their seller?

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Sellers agent has to look at comps, and again, we've talked about that before. Comps are from six months ago, maybe, right? So it's hard to find enough because we have a low volume market, it's hard to find enough sales that match your property that sold two weeks ago, four weeks ago, a month ago, for it to be like in the moment. So a lot of our data that we use is is lag, and that lag is is showing those high prices. So I don't want to say like you calculate a reduction percent, but in my mind, I'm I'm always saying, like, not in my mind, but in my conversations, I'm saying this is the data that I have that's it's trending from six months, maybe sometimes I go a year back just to find the right properties because we're also unique where we are. Uh the conversation has to simply be I'm trying my best to put your property on the market where I think most of the interest will be. And if we miss even by a little bit, we'll know relatively quickly by the number of inquiries and showings that we have, and then it's really up to you. And I still I believe in strategic choices, Jess. You're a little different, I think. You like to you think if someone wants to sell their house, we need to sell it right now. And and that's great. I believe in strategic choices. If the seller wants to be patient, I'm happy to be patient. Um, but it it just means like at some point, at some point, if we're not getting traction, there's there's multiple solutions. It's either better photography, video production, marketing, which that's our job, and we we try to start with the best we can do, or if that's all about as good as you can do, then then the recipe is hey, our price is probably a little a little misaligned here to find the market. So it's all about pricing, for sure. Yeah, it has to be pricing.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Um buyers buyer's agent advice.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Uh get ready to put some miles on the car. Um, you know, and that's a good thing. I I do, I think, I think you should be showing your clients several options at this point since they exist. I think you should see some options. Uh, and again, in our area, every town, it's not sometimes it's not just the house. It's how does the town feel, how do the roads feel, what are the, you know, everyone, every town has a slightly different context. You and I talk about wanting to do like profiles for our local towns, and we'll we'll get there soon enough. But um, like they really are kind of cool and unique and funky and different. And if you have the flexibility to be, oh, I don't know, I just want to be whatever, close to 88 corridor, or I want to be three hours from New York, or whatever it is, then guess what? There's a lot of options, and we can look at a couple different places. So I want to I want to be again, maybe this is the theme of my life, but I want a strategic buyer consultation process, not just hey, here's the three that vaguely fit your your needs, and if you don't if you you gotta pick one of them because by tomorrow they're gonna all be off the market. That's not very fun.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Um, right. So take your time to be patient.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Yep, compare, price shop for sure. All right, I like it.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

So one last thing, and then we'll wrap thing for me. Last thing for me, because I thought about this while you were talking about renovations, and this is a little tangent, maybe it's not worth it, but bonus content. Sometimes you'll see a house chess where it's largely you know, either original, kitchen, bathroom, flooring, all that stuff, or it's mostly original, but then they've done like one room, like a nice new bathroom or a nice new kitchen or something. What's better in your mind? Would you rather have it like uniform in a sense, even if it's old, or would you rather have like just a random room that's in a different theme, and now you almost feel like you've got to match your next steps to like this this partial rental? I just I see that sometimes I'm like, ooh, that bathroom is like very 2024, and your kitchen is 1982, and it's just a it's a it's fine, but I'm like, would I have say especially if you're doing it to sell, right? I should say this. Like if you're doing it because you want a nice bathroom for your life, of course, do the bathroom. But I always when I'm in a house, I always think, huh, this this is like that's a it's a fifth of the way renovated, you know?

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Yeah, I so I think initially for me personally that that might turn me off. Um I'd rather that it was more uniform. Um some people may say, hey, well, the bathroom's done. That's one less thing I have to do. Now I only have to do four-fifths of the house. So I think it depends on perspective, but for me, I think that would that would probably be like, ugh, yeah, so what do I do with this now? Uh for sure. Because and up here too, a lot of times people don't want like a supermodern. They they like the charm. Um we used to have this little anecdote from me. When I started in real estate, it was in Brooklyn and in Bedford Stuyvesant, um uh Clinton Hill and um why am I Fort Green, you know, so like really beautiful traditional brownstones like from the mid to late 1800s. Absolutely glorious, beautiful, with more detail I've than I've ever seen in a farmhouse, just charm, just incredible, incredible homes. And you at that time were, you know, as as the market was going up, you had these investors that would come in and buy a house like that, and the easiest thing to do because a restoration on a home like that is gonna run you $100,000 more, maybe $200,000 more to actually restore it to where it should be for the period. We used to call it a slash and burn renovation. They would pull out all the detail, they would pull out all the charm, oh my god, moldings, all kinds of things in the garbage and the dumpster. Oh my god. And those houses eventually stopped selling. And investors had to figure it out. They had to figure it out. If I want $2 million for this brownstone in Brooklyn, I better restore it. And I'll never forget that. I literally saw that happen in real time. Like slash and burn, I used to call it. Oh, they slashed and burned this one, and I would tell my buyers that there is no charm left. There is no period detail whatsoever. They stripped everything out because they didn't want to do the plaster work. They didn't want to restore the plaster wedding cake molding that was perfect for 85% of the ceiling. Like, so I think that's true up here as well in our market. We have these wonderful old craftsman homes and really charming farmhouses and rustic little cottages and cabins, and that's what people want. So if you all of a sudden rip out the old kitchen and put something super modern, and you know, I mean, I hope you're gonna live there a long time, and then the rest of the house is still rustic. Yeah, make it make sense. Make it make sense. That's all I'm asking.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, that's just a quick thought I had, but I see that that asynchronous stuff, and and and like you said, it's it's a great point. Like it's still it's still better in terms of like updates, but it's not uniform. So that's just another pro-con in the eyes of the the buyer.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

And updates may not be the best thing to do. I always tell people it's you're never too early asking a realtor to come look at your house. I'm not selling for a year. Great. Well, if in the next year you're gonna dump $75,000 into it, call a realtor now because you may not have to do that. Because people may want it exactly the way it is. We see hundreds of houses, right? We work with tons of buyers, like we know what they're saying and what they're looking for and what they want. So I usually tell people don't do anything or what they do is minimal. Yeah. There you go. And that seems like a pretty full pod, chock full of numbers and anecdotes and stories and things. And I hope you enjoyed enjoyed this pod, enjoyed listening to us, and that you're enjoying season two.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Yeah, we you and I, Jess, we love looking at the numbers, and we will continue to do so. Maybe not every single month, but we definitely check in on this from time to time and promote these these ideas to you guys just so you know what's happening in our local market. And if you ever want a consultation or a cut discussion, obviously we're welcome to that. But really, it's just meant to be like we need to, frankly. You and I need the practice, we need the reps, because we need to look at this stuff so that we have the most educated, functional conversations, so that we're helping the people that we we need to help. That's fundamentally what it is. And this is just we're gonna talk about it anyway. We might as well record it and uh and and sh and share our thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Yep, for sure. So I appreciate you doing the prep and breaking down the numbers for us, and uh yeah, we'll see you on the next one.

unknown 40:04

Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yep, take care.