This question was recently posed by the Realtor.com Blogging Team:

How do you think the Real Estate market will be affected by Tuesday’s election?

Well…I have to say I don’t think the real estate market will change much at all…at least not in any major way.  People don’t buy houses because there’s a new president…they buy houses because they want a home to live in and/or a sound investment for their future that will always appreciate over time (for those that have lost money in the current housing market…the key words are “over time”…real estate always goes back up…you just have to wait for it).

Will the emergence of our new president spur some people to feel more confident in our “soon-to-be” burgeoning economy?

Possibly…but I would suggest that the vast majority of those people were already on the verge of buying a home anyway.

Let’s put this into a local perspective…

With regards to Hernando County Real Estate, towards the end of 2005…we had about 700 homes in our salable inventory (in the whole county).  It’s no wonder it seemed like every home sold overnight - it almost did!  With so much competition for homes and so little inventory, things sold quickly and usually with multiple offers (keep in mind; even then, only the homes priced for the market sold, granted the market was much more lenient…but it still held true that if you were priced too high, your home would sit with no attention).  Using a buyer’s criteria in a search would routinely narrow that 700 homes down to 10-15 that fit their needs, and after looking at those, maybe 3 that the buyer was truly interested in purchasing.

Which One to Try First?

Right now we have over 3,500 homes available.  Using the buyers criteria, we routinely have 50-100 listings that fit…oftentimes even more…then the buyer narrows those down to the ones they are truly interested in…and we have 15-30 homes…Buyer’s have a glut of inventory from which to choose…as long as this is the case, lower offers will prevail.  Why?  ”Because if ‘you’ don’t take it, the next guy will”…and a buyer isn’t concerned because they have 15-30 “next guy’s” on the list.

Given that there’s a new president being elected on Tuesday…would that make you want to pay one penny more for a home than you absolutely have to?  Would it make you want to buy a home when you aren’t already in the market to do so?

I don’t think so…but let us know what you think - fill out the comment form below.