I am often approached by those who know me who ask: “Marc, how’s the real estate market”?... the answer to which is more complex than they expect. In fact, there is no such thing as THE real estate market, but more so a widespread compilation of real estate micro-markets… We often hear on TV or read news headlines about the conditions of the “market” using certain statistics to impress or “depress” us depending on what is revealed. For example: Market dips 20% year to date, Prices on the rise by 40% in Montreal, or Demand for housing will drop by the fall. This type of information highly influences people as to whether they decide to move or not, which in turn affects the dynamics of supply and demand.
What most consumers fail to grasp is that moving is about selling your house in one micro-market and purchasing the next in another micro-market… Think of micro-markets as neighbourhoods.
So the decision to move should never be influenced by overall market conditions, but should be focussed towards each micro-market under consideration.,. Just because prices declined by 20% in Montreal does not mean that they did in your neighbourhood…, nor does it mean that they did in your destination neighbourhood… Just because the newspaper says it's a buyers’ market does not make it so in your neighbourhood nor your destination neighbourhood.
Any decision making process to move from one property to another should never be influenced by the news you read out there, but more on the comparing of your specific neighbourhood’s data and the one at your destination, i.e. Selling Value vs Buying Value based on property types and surrounding comparables.
So if you are stopping yourself from improving your lifestyle because of the news or what you may consider to be an un-favorable market to you, think MICRO to MICRO!
Those markets are the only realities you will ever need to consider when thinking of your next move. Everything else in “THE MARKET” is irrelevant.
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