Homebuyer.com Hosts: Mike Simonsen of Altos Research (Episode 2) [VIDEO]

Video Transcript

Dan Green at Homebuyer.com:
Hey, I’m Dan Green. I’m here with Mike Simonson
with Altos Research. Hello, Mike.

Mike Simonsen at Altos Research: Hey, Dan. Good to be here. Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: Hey, so
tell me, what sort of changes did we see in home inventory this week?

Mike Simonsen at Altos Research: So
inventory is climbing with the spring and with the rising interest rates. So homes are starting
to build on the market. We are seeing a few more sales
happening than last year.

So maybe some of the things starting
to loosen up, compared to last year. Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: What
are we seeing in this week in particular with immediate home sales? So homes that are listed for sale
that go into contract immediately.

How that compared to last
week to a few weeks prior. Mike Simonsen at Altos Research:
So there were 16,000 immediate sales this week, which is actually
about the same as last week. It is lower than a year ago, but where
we had a little more spring demand happening and rates were a little
bit lower, but it’s just starting to loosen up a little bit this spring.

Yeah. Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: What do
we see with sellers and their prices? Were there more price reductions this
past week as compared to the week prior?

How’s it compared to
the start of the year? Mike Simonsen at Altos Research: Yeah,
when we look at price reductions, so these are all the homes on the
market, which ones have taken a price cut from the original list price,
that the 30.9 percent of the homes. So that’s up just a little bit from last
week, meaning as more inventory builds, as demand is a little lighter this year.

Okay. There’s a little more price reductions. It’s not a lot, so it doesn’t forecast
prices falling, but just a few more sellers are doing a discount to
see if they get the house to move.

Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: Do you think
that this is sellers pricing their homes too high and having to adjust down? Or do you think that this is
sellers right pricing and having to come down with the market? Mike Simonsen at Altos Research:
I think it is because it’s very normal to have about 30 or 35
percent of homes take price cuts.

I think it is sellers are pricing normal. They’re pricing properly. There’s demand is a little
bit lighter than they were hoping six, eight weeks ago.

And as a result, a few
more are doing price cuts. But as the spring gets later, it’s
normal for price cuts to increase. Now you hit mid summer, you
get more price increases.

By the fall, If you still have your
house on the market by the time the holidays roll around price cuts are even
more than so so none of that’s unusual. It’s just a little more Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: Okay,
last question big NAR settlement, $418 million decoupling buyer and
seller real estate commissions. Has that shown up in any of your data yet?

I know it’s only been a few days. I’m just curious if you’re
seeing anything yet. Mike Simonsen at Altos Research:
So it’s not the data yet.

I’m interested to see if, it’s cheaper
for sellers to sell a house, does it maybe loosen up some more inventory? So we’re going to keep an eye on that. But it, hasn’t actually.

Landed anywhere yet. So we’ll see if there’s any impact. When impact might be measurable.

Dan Green at Homebuyer.com: Awesome. I know I said on our last one that
we’re going to talk about how boomers are staying in their homes later. We’re going to push that to
our, for next time together.

So that’s now been kicked. We’ll get you at next time. Okay.

Mike Simonson, thank you
so much for joining us. Really appreciate your time. Mike Simonsen at Altos Research:
You bet, Dan.

Dan Green at Homebuyer.com:
How are we doing time? How was that?