When it comes to potential home buyers doing their best to assess the Las Vegas real estate market, “conventional wisdom” can be more than a little misleading.
Abrupt, headline-grabbing news or events can sway that conventional wisdom in a hurry. But when conditions undergo changes that are subtle, slow to materialize, or when published statistics report months-old information – conventional wisdom can miss the boat altogether (or at least for the next few sailings!)
For quite a while, conventional wisdom has been that economic and political uncertainty was drying up the supply of home buyers. The numbers ultimately confirmed the trend. But trends are never permanent. Yesterday’s “stalled” housing market will become the future’s “newly active” market just as inevitably as previous red-hot markets eventually cool down.
It is in the nature of things, and there are some unchanging reasons why.
The bedrock reality beneath the majority of home buyers’ decision-making, including those in Las Vegas, has at least as much to do with the way we live our lives as it has with the changing tides of economy or politics. Those are meaningful secondary factors that can sway prices and impact timing. Nevertheless, more primary are the real-life personal factors that wind up driving home buyers’ final decisions.
An empty nester may not relish the notion of becoming both a seller and then home buyer in a market that seems certain to improve later on, but after a year or two of supporting a residence that’s twice as big as s/he can use, reality has a way of driving the decision to get into a condo. Pronto.
Likewise, nothing creates a motivated home buyer quicker than a new baby (or a former baby about to start school in an underperforming school district). The very same economic turmoil that was holding prices down can motivate a move into less extravagant housing. Those same conditions tempt others to take advantage of some of the true housing bargains in neighborhoods which just a few years ago seemed permanently beyond their means.
This past year, many Las Vegas home buyers have experienced either an income change or a family situation change which has caused them to start a real estate search in earnest. As they seek out a suitable real estate fit, most of these will be able to find more affordable prices than were offered the last time they shopped, and most likely, better mortgage terms – both of which can allow them to offer their current home at equally attractive terms.
So the conventional wisdom that potential home buyers are scarcer than hens’ teeth is no more accurate than ever. The home buyers are out there, and some measures tell us that their numbers are rising. If so, eventually the conventional wisdom will come around to agree – at which point it’s also likely that they will have already begun to fade from the scene.
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