Real Estate Blog by Windy Crutchfield, REALTOR®

A Professionals Market

I love being asked "What's the market like, Windy?"  Being a big fan of consistent data review, I can provide my inquiring friends and neighbors with a true picture of the housing market in our area.  Real Estate is Local, and our Hampton Roads area has conditions unique to the nation, so a headline from California should not affect the perceptions of a resident of the Tidewater area.  Right now, we are in a very unbalanced seller's market, the kind that make a potential seller decide to try his hand as a "FSBO/For Sale By Owner."  Over the years of dominating the real estate listings in a particular geographical area, I have had several sellers say "I'm going to use the professionals that you recommend and take a shot at selling myself. If I don't get a buyer, I will come to you to list on the MLS."  I'm grateful for their testimony that I have a great team of service providers that I use to help me market my listings. I'm also grateful for their loyalty when they revert to me within a few weeks that they want to sign a contract with me.  The knowledge and skills that I have developed in the past 15 years has always been a benefit to them, and it's the true reward to me at the closing table.  To that end, we are in a "Professional's Market."  We entered the Spring Season 2020 with very low inventory and very high demand (See Housing Market tab of my website).  A reasonable thought for any pragmatic person would be that they could stick a FSBO sign in the yard and have a buyer at the drop of a eye.  The experience of a recent FSBO is the black and white proof that hiring a professional, career agent at the onset of selling a home today will give the seller the best results:

FSBO Sale:

  • Home marketed on Zillow Jan 28, 2020 and sold May 8th.
  • 90 days on market; industry standard at same time was 63 DOM; 
  • Asking price $600K. Sold for $520K ...