West Michigan's Morning News
Home Prices Set to Decrease
does the Mosquito surveillance team have uniforms? I don't think I'd want to be on that team. Well, it's the Swiss Michigan's morning news. Steve Kelly, Brett Bakeda, Schmidi back in the next half hour, and talk about weekend events. House prices will drop this summer. That's according to an industry insider real estate expert, Michael Hirschenberg on the live line with us this morning. Michael, thanks for joining us today. Oh, very happy. Thank you for having me. Industries been waiting for this for a long time, and although it's tough to time the market on anything, could there finally be a little relief in sight? I really think especially at your different price points around the city, you know, when inventory is, you know, on the rise, interest rates are expected to go down, meaning everybody and their mother is trying to get something on the market and rush to do so. Sandy and I were driving around last weekend, and we thought we saw a lot more signs than we've seen in a long time. Obviously that's not scientific, but why the break now? Why does it look like inventory might finally be there? Well, a lot of people are trying to catch up, you know, with interest rates expected to go down. A lot of people are forecasting, you know, September, beginning of November, summer forecasting, you know, you know, August. I think start going down. People want to get their homes on the market because they have more purchasing power. They have the ability to, you know, get a better rate to purchase something, and I think everyone's just expecting this bubble to pop a little bit and getting more property from the market. I think it's going to be the trend heading towards the next few months, for sure. So Michael, if you're on that tipping point, you're listening right now, maybe emptying nesters, and you're saying, you know, why are we on this big home? We can take advantage of selling it for a great price. When do you expect the interest rates to drop? Is it next month, like July, they're talking about, or, you know, do you, how much time, I guess, do you have to get ahead of that? It's hard to say a lot of industry experts out here in our markets are predicting September, some predicting late August. We're just going to have to wait and see. But, you know, for all the folks that are out there, in regards to, you know, sellers that are just waiting and waiting, if you wait, you're going to be getting a less value for your home because there's going to be, you know, way more supply than usual. - Any advice, then, if there's competition once again, how to make your property, your house stand out? What do you tell your clients about getting something ready for the market? - Yeah, buyers are very, very picky right now. So, you know, they've had a lot to choose from. You know, they're looking for the right one. They're looking for that property that will really speak to them. So, you know, make sure to just, you know, heighten your presentation about photos, video, any kind of, you know, 3D tours that the buyer can look for as he's planning his trip to get down here. I think those are some very important things to look at. - Are there still opportunities where you're seeing a lot of bidding wars? And I say that because I had someone recently tell me they had sold their home and they thought their agent was crazy saying, you know what? Here's what the value is listed a little bit below. Trust me, you're going to get above that because you're going to create a bidding war. Is that still the case or not? - It is that multiple price points in our market out here in North Texas. Last week, we saw bidding wars at 1.4 to 1.8 million. And bidding wars were happening. We had deals lost by 100 to 200,000 at that one and a half billion dollar price point, which is great. I haven't seen that in a long time. - What if you're young? What if you're a first time home buyer? What could be out there maybe later on this summer for them? - There's a lot going on the first time home buyers. We're seeing our state grants pick up. There's programs out there depending on what zip code you live here in the area. You can qualify for it right out of the gate. Go online and see if you qualify for a $38,000 grant. There's other programs that based on your income and based on your annual money coming in. You can qualify for even more grants to help you with down payment assistance and get that home at ease. - Real estate expert Michael Hirschenberg. Pleasure. Thanks for your time this morning. - Thank you.