Should You Try to Time the Market in Syracuse?

By Chip Hodgkins

The Hodgkins Homes Team specializes in Residential Real Estate Selling and Buying, mortgage, title, development, new construction and remodeling.

Timing the market is what sellers have always tried to do. You hold off, wait for conditions to feel right, and list when you think everyone else is buying. That logic held up for a long time, and it doesn’t hold up in Syracuse anymore.

Syracuse today isn’t the Syracuse of a few years ago, and it isn’t what’s happening across the rest of the country either. Syracuse is tied for first place in the country for the shortest days on the market, and the reason most people reach for first is the wrong one. It isn’t Micron, because that effect hasn’t hit us yet.

What we actually have is a supply problem: there aren’t enough houses for all the buyers waiting for one to come on the market, and everything else about this market follows from that gap. When inventory stays this tight, the calendar stops mattering the way it used to, and a buyer who’s been looking for months isn’t going to hold out when the right house finally shows up.

A well-priced home draws offers year-round. Because demand so far outruns supply, a home that’s priced right and shows well gets attention no matter when it lists. We’re still seeing multiple offers on nearly every listing that’s positioned correctly, and that holds steady month after month. Priced right and in the right condition, I guarantee it, you’ll have multiple offers. If your house is ready and priced where it should be, the buyers are already there waiting.

Timing has been replaced by readiness. Timing the market used to be the game, and now it’s simply about getting your house on the market once it’s ready. So instead of watching the market, watch your own situation. Your window opens when your home is ready for showings, when you’ve handled the repairs you were going to make anyway, and when you have a clear number in mind for what your home is worth. That window is open right now.

We highly recommend that, as soon as you’re ready, you get your house on the market, because buyers across this market are waiting for the next one to hit. The moment it does, your house is basically already sold, and you just don’t know it yet.

If you’ve been holding off and you’re wondering whether that’s still the right call for your house and your street, we’d like to talk it through with you. Call or text us at 315-449-6697, email us at Info@Hodgkinshomes.com, or visit HodgkinsHomes.com.. We’re happy to look at your situation and tell you honestly what we think.