We have buyers who have been looking for a house for ages. Lots of agents do. It’s not that the buyers are particularly choosy, but rather because the inventory of homes on the market is low. Our buyers are well qualified; they’re nimble, in that we’ve advised them to be ready at a moment’s notice to view a home and make an offer; and they’re aching to have homes to view. Aching.

We feel their pain. We don’t like having to tell them the same thing over and over, “We’re sorry, there just aren’t any new listings.” We network with Realtors from our office and from other brokerages, asking the same question, “Do you have anything coming on the market?” When any decent new listing goes live, the odds that there will be multiple offers on it are high, and a lot of buyers don’t want to have to elbow their way into a transaction.

Here’s what they say: “You told me there would be more homes in the spring. It’s spring, where are the homes?”

Fair question.

The National Association of Realtors lists six main reasons, and a lot of it is (surprise!) a residual of the crash we had 2007. Even though it sort of feels like we recovered from the crash, one in five homeowners with a mortgage still doesn’t have enough equity to sell. That cuts 20% of the possible homes right off the top. And people who bought at the height of the boom, and who aren’t underwater, are trying to see if they can realize a decent profit,which may not happen for a few more years.

Keller Williams studies the market incessantly and Gary Keller made an interesting statement at their recent annual meeting. He said that while prices have nearly returned to pre-crash levels, wages haven’t kept pace. So while our long awaited return of market values has nearly arrived, we can’t really afford them.

Check out the NAR article, HERE, and inside there is a link to a more detailed article if you are so inclined.

Meanwhile, please know that we would love to wave our magic lockbox and make your perfect home appear, but it turns out we forgot the combination.