Where next for available housing stock?

von Neumann

With all the economic turmoil, why has the number of homes for sale not dropped?

Thinking about this, surely anybody who does not need to sell will hold off and put up with the house they have until things settle down?

Can we expect to see a decline in available housing stock as the optional sellers leave the market?

Will we see a decline in available stock without a recovery in house prices?

http://daftwatch.atspace.com/

gurramok

Investors, speculators on hard times will always push up the stock for both sale and rental.

And the you have certain homeowners who think to sell now before the price goes down to get the max price possible.

And there are the 'sell before negative equity hits crowd' and we have lots of them in this country.

Economic turmoil tends to more items for sale due to distress than items being bought, more sellers than buyers.

Senna

With all the economic turmoil, why has the number of homes for sale not dropped?

If you read that again you answered your own question. Optional sellers are a small percentage, most will actually want to sell they just aren't in a hurry. More distressed sellers will be putting houses on the market than optional sellers taking them off.

Do-more

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence some people are still delusional about the value of their house.

I was in a queue last week behind two women discussing houses, one was saying how she wanted to move out of town and the bungalow she was interested in had fallen in asking price from €500,000 to €380,000. She then went on to say that her next door neighbour's house sold last year for €250,000 but she had her's up for €225,000 she then exclaimed about her own house "that's some drop isn't it!" :rolleyes:

von Neumann

I'd expect the number of house for sale to drop in the next 6-12 months

I'm pretty sure this will be ramped by the media to mean that all is well again and that house prices are about to rocket.

Every vested interest will be on the radio talking about the law of supply and demand........will they be right?

Or could there be another mechanism (reason) at work?

Senna

the economy is in such turmoil and will be for a long time, that no mater how many VI's spout about the end of the crash or great time to buy, who going to listen?

astrofool

Do-more wrote: »

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence some people are still delusional about the value of their house.

I was in a queue last week behind two women discussing houses, one was saying how she wanted to move out of town and the bungalow she was interested in had fallen in asking price from €500,000 to €380,000. She then went on to say that her next door neighbour's house sold last year for €250,000 but she had her's up for €225,000 she then exclaimed about her own house "that's some drop isn't it!" :rolleyes:

If you lost €25,000 I'm sure you'd think it was a large sum too.

People don't see money in % terms, which, of course, leads to problems with costly items, but that's human nature.

Do-more

astrofool wrote: »

If you lost €25,000 I'm sure you'd think it was a large sum too.

People don't see money in % terms, which, of course, leads to problems with costly items, but that's human nature.

But she hasn't lost €25,000 she's ahead €95,000 on the deal compared to if she sold and bought at the same time as her neighbour last year!