Manhattan - What A Great Time To Upgrade
This is a fabulous market to upgrade your home. Prices have tumbled for years, partially because there is so much more property to choose from and fewer buyers are competing for them. Those who have been sitting on the sidelines and are now in buying-mode are realizing substantial value, especially if they are upgrading to a larger home.
Whereas it is natural to feel the market is suppressed, this is indeed the new normal, so one has to accept it and manage the circumstances to their favor. If you were to sell a smaller property for a lower price than say several years ago, that same differential on a larger property creates an arbitrage effect on your purchase. You will gain substantially more value by making that upgrade at this time in the market-cycle. A large portion of buyers are still waiting for better deals to come. Those future "deals" may never materialize considering the innumerable factors that are currently aligned. When such a deal reveals itself, it is most certainly identified by multiple people...the result?...competitive bidding. Regardless of how "slow" our market has become, it is still likely the most efficient of all the competing marketplaces in the country.
For those still fixed on timing the market, they may well lose out on their best opportunity. It is impossible to time the market with any precision. If you are even considering buying in the foreseeable future you should be out there seeing property and making offers.
Although there are moderate levels of competitive bidding situations now, they are typically isolated to overwhelmingly well priced and/or one-of-a-kind properties. Outside of those circumstances, sellers should be patient.
QUESTION:
Are you prepared to dive in? You should always know what you are in a position to buy or sell at all times. If you don't know, reacquaint yourself with the marketplace. What is your property worth? What can you afford to buy? Anyone interested in buying or selling, should be rolling up their sleeves to determine whether the time is right to sell or if there's a home or investment property out there for them.
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Roberto Cabrera - Brown Harris Stevens, 130 Fifth Avenue, 2nd Fl, New York, NY 10011