What I am about to tell you is purely anecdotal, just what I have seen and heard about the local Real Estate market in the past 2 or 3 weeks. I understand that it goes against the trends everyone else is writing about, but it is just my experience in the market.
It seems like things are tightening up a bit, especially over what was happening last year. I am hearing about, or participating in, many more multiple offer situations than I would expect in a slowing market. I think this can be chalked up to 2 main factors.
One is that sellers are getting wise. Through 2006, sellers still believed they were in a pre-2005 market. They believed that they could price their properties at any price, no matter how high, and get multiple offers. It has taken a year, and many newspaper and magazine articles, but they now know the realities of today's market and they are pricing their properties with more realistic expectations.
Secondly there are simply fewer properties on the market, so, even though there are fewer buyers, they are chasing far fewer homes.
Thus the phenomenon of multiple offers, less homes at lower prices and everyone, agents, buyers and sellers, getting smarter.
