With the April 30th expiration of the home buyer tax credit, it’s time for buyers, Austin sellers and Austin Realtors to figure out what happens next. Austin Sellers who didn’t get offers might wonder, “are the buyers all gone now?” Austin Buyers who didn’t get their act together and claim the tax credit might wonder, “did I miss the boat?” Realtors in Austin are wondering if business might dry up as the market takes a breather while the hangover wears off. Here’s what I think.
Sellers
Many Austin Sellers in the sub-$250K price ranges placed homes on the market earlier this year, sooner than they otherwise would have, hoping of course to catch the wave of tax credit buyers. This is something we encouraged, and rightly so, as many of these homes did in fact sell. These “timing opportunist” sellers include both motivated sellers and fair weather “let’s see what happens” sellers.
The latter group of sellers with unsold homes will start removing homes from the market fairly quickly as they’re already experiencing the early stages of “seller fatigue”, and might now feel discouraged. They don’t really have to sell anyway, but would have if the right offer had come along. It just didn’t happen. If I’m right about this, the May real estate market stats for Austin will show a spike in Expired/Withdrawn listings.
