June Bloomed, But July's Been Dry

Tom Grisak's Real Estate Newsletter

www.grisak.com

972.359.1553

The #1 Realtor in Fairview, Lucas, and Parker for the past 24 straight years

June Bloomed But July's Been Dry

I mentioned in our May report that June is when we typically start to see a market slowdown, but it looked like this year it wasn't following suit. And that turned out to be the case.

We had a great June with 12 home sales for a combined value of $18 million. Of course, it isn't about us as much as it's getting these homes sold for our clients. We have a lot of great homes in our inventory and you'll see them below.

I guess everything moved back a month this year because we're feeling the June blues here in mid-July. We've been checking our phone line every day to make sure it's still in service.

We don't expect to see full price offers or homes selling as quickly as they did in March or April, but there are always buyers out there. If you're selling your home, now is the time to try to make a deal if a reasonable offer comes your way.

The table below shows the market activity in Fairview, Lucas, and Parker over the past 7 days. The most active category is, not surprisingly, the number of price decreases, almost 3 times as many as new listings on the market. Sellers are trying to get their homes sold before kids are back in school.

Also, I noticed there were only four home sales in Fairview, Lucas, and Parker over the past seven days. If showings or offers on your home are sluggish, it's not necessarily your home or even pricing, it's just a function of the cycle we're in. We should start to see a pickup of both in Fall, one of our busiest quarters.

Four We Couldn't Sell This Past Year And Why

Every agent loves to share their success stories about selling homes, and we're no different. What we don't particularly like to draw attention to are the homes we listed but never sell. I'd love to say we sell every listing we take, in Fairview, Lucas, or Parker (our wheelhouse) but that's not the case.

We recently lost a nice listing we couldn't sell over a 6 month period. That makes four over the past year, and they all had one thing in common. All four homes are located on two of the busiest streets, Lucas Branch Rd (leading to south Princeton), or Country Club Rd, (the major north/south road running through Lucas and Fairview).

When people move to what they consider "out" a little into Fairview, Lucas, and Parker, they're usually trying to get away from traffic, not looking for a home next to it. So where's all this traffic coming from? It's not necessarily from the relatively few new homes being built in these three towns. Most of the traffic is coming from cities surrounding FLP, like Plano, Allen, McKinney, and especially south Princeton.

If you haven't crossed Lake Lavon into south Princeton in awhile, you should take a drive over. You'll be amazed at the countless, new, smaller, zero lot line homes, just one on top of another. All that traffic has to go through Lucas and a two lane road like Lucas Branch Rd (Hwy 3286) just cannot support it. I recently posted a blog article called "Stackin' 'Em Deep and Selling 'Em Cheap" you can see HERE.

A Seat for Every Butt

Many years ago, I listed a home for the general manager of a large used car dealership. He was a nice guy, I could tell he was very good at his job and I really liked him. In a way, he ended up selling me on where his home should sell, although my sale comparables wouldn't support it.

With some trepidation, I decided to list at the price he wanted rather than what I believed the market would bear. After a couple of months and no luck getting anyone to even look at the the home, I knew it was time to have a heart to heart talk with him.

Although it's a nice home on a big lot, it's rather small and only has three bedrooms. That's not what most buyers are looking for in a family neighborhood community like Lovejoy ISD. Larger homes with multiple living areas and at least 4 bedrooms are what most buyers want. The seller wanted to price his home like a four bedroom home believing his fabulous cook's kitchen would convince someone to overlook the lack of a 4th bedroom and extra living areas.

He said there's an old car salesman saying "There's a seat for every butt". That made me laugh, but I responded with "selling cars is different than selling homes". I reminded him the home had been thoroughly tested on the market and no matter what he or I thought about the price, the market was telling us it was priced too high.

Long story short, I convinced him to drop the price of the home substantially and not much longer after that, it sold.

American Markets with Biggest Price Declines From Peak

“Thirty-one of the 100 largest markets in the U.S. have now seen prices dip by at least a full percentage point from their recent highs, suggesting the number of markets experiencing annual price declines may be poised to trend higher in coming months,” ICE analysts said.

I found it interesting that Austin, the darling of corporate and residential relocations for years now, is suffering the highest percentage price declines of any major city. What goes around comes around. Huge upward swings almost always result in huge downward swings.

Austin, Texas (-19.7 percent)
Cape Coral, Florida (-13.3 percent)
North Port, Florida (-11.2 percent)
San Francisco, California (-8.9 percent)
Phoenix Arizona (-5.7 percent)
San Antonio, Texas (-5.2 percent)
Boise City, Idaho (-5.2 percent)
Deltona, Florida (-4.0 percent)
Stockton, California (-3.7 percent)
Denver, Colorado (-3.6 percent)
Tampa, Florida (-3.5 percent)
Dallas, Texas (-3.2 percent)
Palm Bay, Florida (-3.1 percent)
Lakeland, Florida (-3.1 percent)
Sacramento, California (-3.0 percent)
San Jose, California (-2.9 percent)
Provo, Utah (-2.8 percent)
Miami, Florida (-2.3 percent)
Colorado Springs, Colorado (-2.3 percent)
Jacksonville, Florida (-2.2 percent)
Oxnard, California (-1.9 percent)
Orlando, Florida (-1.9 percent)
Seattle, Washington (-1.9 percent)
Portland, Oregon (-1.8 percent)
Ogden, Utah (-1.6 percent)
Los Angeles, California (-1.4 percent)
Salt Lake City, Utah (-1.3 percent)
San Diego, California (-1.3 percent)
Bakersfield, California (-1.2 percent)
Memphis, Tennessee (-1.2 percent)
Riverside, California (-1.1 percent)

Homes We Sold Over The Past Month

SOLD

650 Maple Creek Drive

Fairview/Lovejoy ISD

Listed For $2,875,000

June Bloomed But July's Been Dry

June Bloomed But July's Been Dry

Four We Couldn't Sell This Past Year And Why

A Seat for Every Butt

American Markets with Biggest Price Declines From Peak

Homes We Sold Over The Past Month

Here is Our Current Activity

More Articles

Will It Be 25 Years in a Row?

Here Comes The Bottom Fishers

1505 Barton Creek Ct in Lucas, with Lovejoy ISD, is an Excellent Buyer Opportunity

Work With Us

Follow Us on Instagram

Phone

Email

Address

Contact Details

Grisak Group

Submit a Message