It’s no secret that fall and winter are the slowest times of year for Montrose real estate. Many consumers have an aversion to moving in the cold, sellers are certain no one shops for a home in the winter, and buyers step back from the market due to a lack of inventory. I’ve always been firmly of the opinion that the market wouldn’t see nearly as much of a slowdown if more sellers would just run headlong into the winter darkness with a real estate sign in the front yard (I even made a YouTube video about this a couple of years ago – please watch it and then tell me how funny I am). This year, the idea of sticking it out and keeping your home on the market is more evident than in any recent year. Mortgage rates have come down from their 7% highs to around 6.34%. Because of this, November mortgage applications are the highest they’ve been since 2022.
So, what type of buyer willingly enters the real estate market knowing they’ll have to move boxes while wearing a parka? My favorite type of buyer, which I’ve always affectionately called “The Holiday Shoppers.” Colorado, specifically the Western Slope, sees an influx of people from warmer climates who’ve always dreamed of snow in the yard while listening to holiday music and sipping hot cocoa. And if that’s something you want to experience, you’ll need to put in an offer on your new Hallmark-style home before Thanksgiving.
Where the holiday shoppers often stall out is inventory. Inventory is already down 18% from its summer highs. While many people get excited about the idea of Christmas in their new home, very few will rush into a property they aren’t truly excited about just for that reason. If buyers can’t find the right home, they’ll likely put their search on hold until the start of the new year, when inventory begins to pick up again.
So I’ll say it again: if you’re thinking about pulling your home off the market because it didn’t sell this summer, hold out for even just a couple more weeks and you may hit pay dirt. If not, you can always take it off through the holidays and re-list at the start of the year to capture my second favorite batch of buyers, the “New Year’s Resolutioners.”
A Balanced Market Is a Good Thing
As anyone who watched my last stats video knows, “months of inventory” is my favorite real estate metric to follow. It draws a clear line in the sand where we get to look down at our toes and ask: are we standing in a buyers’ market, a sellers’ market, or right on the line? Then we get to wiggle our toes a bit, because standing in sand feels good.
October showed 4.5 months of inventory, up from this time last year when October hosted 4 months of active inventory. Six months is where we draw that line in the sand and say it’s shifting into a buyers’ market. In my experience, between 4 and 6 months is considered a “balanced” market—and in my opinion, a balanced market is a good thing. My buyers are rarely in competing-offer situations right now. Fewer contracts are falling apart because buyers are able to carefully consider their options. Unlike the manic markets when people were writing sight-unseen offers, offering their firstborn child for earnest money, and promising sellers that the only thing they wanted more than this home was world peace… only to do inspections two weeks later, discover the fridge doesn’t reach exactly 38.4 degrees, and terminate.
I understand that a balanced market means being on the market longer for our sellers, which means enduring more showings while awkwardly walking the dog around the block over and over, trying to guess where the vertices of showing length and actual buyer interest intersect. But you also have a higher chance of securing the right buyer and actually getting to the closing table, so you can move on to your next exciting thing!
Click Here to View Residential Sold – October
