Buying or selling a home? You might want to be prepared for a bidding war

When Brooke Day and her husband began looking for a house to buy in Bibb County, she didn’t realize how competitive and stressful it would be.

She and husband Duane had lived in their house in north Bibb for 11 years, and now with a 4-year-old they were looking for something larger with a bigger yard and in a good school zone.

“One of the houses we put an offer in for and didn’t get,” Day said. “The very first day (on the market) we were one of nine families looking at it, and they had multiple offers after that first day.”

Robert Binion, senior vice president for Macon residential with Fickling & Co. real estate firm, was not surprised.

“One thing that we’re seeing that I had not seen since the boom of 2006, we are seeing multiple offers on properties,” he said.

With more buyers competing for homes, it is causing other things to happen.

“The pace for home sales has been very steady for 2017 and 2018,” Binion said. “This has certainly caused a drop in our inventory of active listings. The low inventory and the steady demand for housing have caused home prices to rise in the Middle Georgia market area.”

Many times it depends on the location.

Day said they wanted to send their daughter to a public school and liked the Springdale Elementary School zone where her child could go on to Howard Middle and Howard High schools.

“It’s really one of the more popular areas to look at for a family … and everybody is looking for the price ranges that are in there,” she said. “So there was a lot of competition.”

The Days sold their house within about three months, which is the average time in Bibb County. And they were able to find a home in the Springdale area, but it will require some updating.

“So we can go in and update the flooring and take down some wallpaper, and we can have a good quality home,” she said.

Day’s agent, Alex Vento, a broker with Connie R. Ham Middle Georgia Realty in Forsyth, said Springdale is not the only competitive area.

“We’re starting to see some interest in south Macon, and sub-south more particularly, now that Amazon is down there,” Vento said. “And even Byron is getting pretty hot.

“If you’ve got a good house, priced right and in the right area, it’s going to go fast. … If you have a house that needs work, it might take longer.”

What the numbers show

In 2017, there were 1,079 sales of existing homes from January to June, compared to 1,169 year-to-date in 2018, according to a market report prepared by Fickling, based on the Middle Georgia Multiple Listing Service.

The price range with the highest number of sales, at 298 homes closed, was $100,000-$150,000. In 2017 for same time period, 164 homes sold in this price range, and it was also the range with the highest number sold.

The average sales price is about $150,000, which is considerably higher than in 2015, when the average was about $130,000.

However, there was a spike in the average sales price for the first half of last year, which was $170,000. The average got a bit skewed because two homes sold in June for about $1 million each. For that to happen in the same month was “very abnormal,” Binion said.

The Houston County market has had “steady growth and recovery,” said Elaine Lee, senior vice president for residential with Fickling & Co. in Warner Robins.

There were 1,340 homes sold during the first half of this year compared to 1,276 sold for the same period of 2017, based on market data from Central Georgia Multiple Listing Service and prepared by Fickling.

The average price of the homes sold for the same time period was $178,868 in 2018 and $168,498 in 2017.

Lee said the reason the number of sales and the prices are increasing is because of “more first-time home buyers entering the market and more consumer confidence.”

The Middle Georgia real estate sales market seems to be doing a little better than what’s going on nationally.

Existing home sales, excluding new construction, has been declining for four straight months as compared to last year, according to a news release by the National Association of Realtors. Sales are now 2.2 percent below a year ago, it said.

But the reason for declining sales nationally, involves some of the same things seen in the Middle Georgia market.

“The root cause is without a doubt the severe housing shortage that is not releasing its grip on the nation’s housing market,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in the release. “What is for sale in most areas is going under contract very fast and in many cases, has multiple offers. This dynamic is keeping home price growth elevated, pricing out would-be buyers and ultimately slowing sales.”

Interest rates are low but going up

Although the Federal Reserve has raised fund rates, which controls interest rates that banks charge people to borrow money, it doesn’t seem to have dampened home sales, Binion said. The Reserve, which has increased rates twice this year, said in mid-June that two additional increases are on the way. This may have actually caused some people to go ahead and look to buy a home now, Binion said.

The average interest rate is 4.54 percent for a 30-year fixed rate, according to the Freddie Mac primary mortgage market survey for the week of July 26.

Binion said he’s not concerned.

“Rates are still historically low,” he said. “It’s still a great time to buy.”

Vento agrees, adding there are some programs available to buyers to help reduce their cost of buying a home, especially first-time home buyers. These programs offer $7,500 to $15,000 for buyers who meet certain requirements, such as income and credit limit.

An encouraging sign for the real estate market is that new construction of single-family homes is on the upswing.

“Consumer demand for single-family homes is holding strong this summer,” Randy Noel, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, said in a news release this month.

However, concerns over material costs, especially lumber and tariffs, is causing the rate of new homes nationwide to slow down.

In Macon, the number of new single-family home building permits so far this year is nearly double from last year. In 2017, 50 permits were issued from January to June with the total value of the homes at about $8.5 million. Through June of this year, the number of permits was 96 with a value of about $13.5 million, according to information provided by Macon-Bibb County Inspection and Fees Department.

The numbers of permits in Houston County, including the cities and unincorporated areas, were fairly steady with 475 issued for the first half of 2017, with a total value of about $92.8 million and 484 permits issued in 2018, with a value of about $95.5 million, according to the Houston County Inspection Department.

Vento said he’s seeing more investors coming into the market again.

“It’s a good thing because they see we are a value, and I think the market is just primed to take off,” he said.

“There are a lot of jobs being created. You’ve got affordably priced homes, and hopefully we can keep it that way. So this area, I think, is poised to really experience good things here in the near future.”

This story was originally published July 29, 2018 at 12:00 AM.