We are based in the middle of Massachusetts, so pretty close to the heart of New England and Fall is a special season for us.
September has been pretty gorgeous with finally pleasurable temperatures that swing between chilly and warm, and great dry days of sunshine.
However, a beautiful September in Massachusetts this year, 2019, doesn’t mean that the Fall isn’t coming. Leaves are changing colors and are gracefully falling in chain spirals on our green lawns
It’s possibly the best season in New England; the Foliage draws people from all over the globe, Halloween is one of the kids’ favorite times of the year (and of some adults’ too!), apple picking, cinnamon donuts and all that goes on in this beautiful period.
Labor Day marks a change in the real estate market, and it’s not always as pretty as the colors of the season. While it definitely makes many homes look so beautiful, cozy and welcoming by painting them with the warm colors of the New England Fall, it’s also the last chance for sellers and buyers to make a deal and move on.
Home Sellers and Home Buyers may have closed deals and moved during the more favorable Spring season, usually in the last part of it as it tends to start a little late up here, in the North-East of the country. Many others may have closed during the second part of the year favorable for residential sales and purchases, the Summer. All others either drop out of the market, waiting to restart fresh in the Spring or show their motivation and take drastic measures.
For Buyers that means increasing efforts and starting to reduce their expectations, like the towns and neighborhoods that they would like to move to, physical conditions of the property, type of home, features and amenities.
It’s also the time that Sellers really use the only effective option they may have, to finally sell, especially if they went through the whole Spring and Summer without success, a price cut.
We could think that the Sellers’ and Buyers’ actions should finally meet on common ground and real estate sales pick up, but that doesn’t always happen, not to the degree that one could expect and certainly not in all local real estate markets.
The reality is that there are obstacles to a marked pickup in buying and selling activity.
Schools start mostly at the end of August, so families with school-age children, which are approx 1/3 of all potential buyers, tend to postpone a move. Mostly Millennials and Empty-Nesters can take control of the market, but may not be the most motivated buyers to power the marketplace.
Millennials typically struggle to qualify for finance thanks to the heavy burden of student loans that haven’t lead to very high salaries to start out at. They also tend to overlook homes which require any amount of work, even minor. Amenities nearby are considered indispensable, not to mention that they accept the idea of being renters more than other generations, so they don’t pressure themselves into purchasing. There certainly are many other reasons, they just don’t rush into buying as much as other generations.
Empty-Nesters tend to be savvy and have probably been the the process of acquiring a home, possibly more than once, and therefore emotions don’t push them into buying so easily. Their experience also allows them to go through all the steps to buying and selling very cautiously. So they often prefer to wait the market out to sell, in the end, they know that property values tend to rise over time which is great if you’re downsizing as they usually do. Many are also financially more stable and can make thought through decisions, which doesn’t help the number of sales.
Of course there are many other reasons why the real estate market usually slows down during the Fall, especially towards the end, with weather related issues and more, but that’s what often happens in the conventional real estate market of homes sold traditionally, whether through a real estate agent or directly by the owner in a FSBO.
Despite factors influencing both Buyers and Sellers, markets often tip into temperatures that tend to look replicate the weather, so it chills into a “cold market” and is generally perceived as the best time to snap up deals from very motivates Sellers. Many don’t want to go through another Winter in the home they have decided to sell. A cut in price may be the last hurdle before being able to move to a warmer climate down South and may now become acceptable. Psychologically Sellers could be satisfied that they at least tried during the favorable months, but if a 5% cut is what it takes it could still be a tough pill to swallow. Buyers know this, especially in this age of information easily accessible information. The problem is that all unsuccessful Sellers who don’t want to lower their financial expectations enough, as a price reduction of less than 5% is not always very effective, will continue being unsuccessful, the listing go stale and the house unsold.
Other markets are very different and may even accelerate in the Fall and go strong in the Winter, as they are much less sensitive to the classic real estate cycles, like the market we, Proxima Investors specialize in, which is the market of Sales on Terms.
This allows us to position the properties that we purchase in a much less competitive market, offering a deal to a very motivated category of Buyers who are also typically very
Our busiest months are the cold ones here in New England, because Sellers run out of options and start looking around for alternatives and that’s how many of our Sellers find us: looking for a Home Selling solution that works for them. And that’s what we’re about.
At Proxima Investors we sell most of our properties through our program of Lease-Purchase or Lease-Option, in all variants, as we have designed it specifically for our model and unlike any other investor. On the other side of the deals, we purchase the properties we sell in any of the many ways to acquire real estate ranging from Straight Options to Lease-Purchase, from Wholesaling to Delayed Purchase , from Seller Finance or simply CASH depending on the goals of the Sellers and the best method of achieving them. A conventional sale is only cash minus all the closing costs that occur, often as a surprise, in an ordinary Purchase & Sale transaction and the Seller has to take care of everything with that set amount of money and make the most of what’s left after all the costs of a pricey conventional sale.
Almost all homes and many Sellers qualify for at least one of our programs and they all provide a fast selling option for the most financial return. If you’re a Seller or a Buyer, ask to see if you’re a fit for success through our programs, test us and you will probably be blown away by finding out how many options you have outside the box of a conventional sale.
More info for our Sellers and our Buyers is available on our websites, by sending a quick email (proximainvestors@gmail.com), easy WhatsApp 617-921-9265, just calling 617-999-0269 or why not message us right here!?
We can’t wait to hear your questions, but in the meantime don’t forget to embrace and enjoy the Fall, so beautiful in New England, it’s really worth it!
