May has begun with the strongest selling productivity and activity we’ve seen in many months.
Any Buyer who has waited for their “best moment” seems to have decided this must be it. Interest rates remain attractively low for single family homes. The national economy has posted very good indicators of buyer confidence in all sectors except automobile purchases which has shown a noticeable drop year over year recently.
Could it be that Uber has gained more acceptance among the masses as alternate transportation? I can’t count how many of my clients regularly rely on Uber or Lyft services instead of driving themselves. It has become commonplace in the large metropolitan centers. I enjoyed a celebrity dinner at Hotel Montage this week and spoke with a guest who never had a driver’s license, and doesn’t intend to get one. That was a new party topic I had never expected.
Local Real Estate analysts state there was a noticeable rise in luxury high-priced residential real estate purchases immediately following the Election, November 2016. That buying spree among the wealthy set lasted about 90 days. High end buying has slowed since February, though, and we are watching to see if it holds or shows signs of a soft underbelly as inventory in the $10mm price category continues to increase. We should know by end of summer.
And summer’s just around the corner!
-Ernie
