Market Survey: What Market Slowdown?

 
While there has been a lot of news about the housing market cooling off, Mid-Atlantic real estate agents reveal a different story. The regional housing market remains very competitive, particularly for first-time homebuyers.

Key findings from the March 2023 survey of Bright MLS subscribers:

• Homes are still selling above asking price. More than a third of homes (throughout Bright’s footprint) sold over list price last month. First-time homebuyers were more likely than repeat buyers to have paid more than asking price. On average, these buyers paid about 3% above list.
  
  
• Buyers are still losing out on homes. Nearly 60% of homebuyers made an offer on more than one home, and about 20% of these homebuyers put offers on five or more homes before they successfully purchased a home. Compared to repeat buyers, first-time homebuyers were more than twice as likely to have made an offer on five or more homes.
  
  
• Most sellers received multiple offers. Listing agents report that two-thirds of their sellers received multiple offers. Sellers received an average of 2.7 offers on homes sold last month.
  
  
• There have been a lot of buyers in the market in early 2023. Many homebuyers had only been looking for a home since the beginning of the year. While nearly half of recent buyers had been house hunting for less than two months, some had been in the market much longer—about one in four homebuyers had been looking for a home for more than six months.
  
  
• Rental homes and other investment properties are coming onto the for-sale market. Tight inventory is encouraging people to sell their rental properties or second homes. Nearly one-quarter of homes sold last month were rental properties or vacation/second homes.

A total of 323 agents representing recent homebuyers and 484 agents representing recent home sellers responded to the Bright MLS survey conducted between March 9 and March 15, 2023. More research and analysis on the housing market is available from Bright MLS’s Research Team.