In Central Florida, there are nearly 10,000 properties under contract each month. While some might say those are “good” numbers to have, in order to get a true picture of the real estate market, it’s best to look at how many closed sales there are each month as well.
The Orlando Regional REALTOR Association distributes a summary of the prior month’s activity called the “Market Pulse” each month which shares the number of active listings, homes under contract, average days on market and the number of closed properties.
While it’s encouraging to see that nearly the same number of homes are “under contract or pending” as are actively on the market, it’s not so encouraging to see that only about 25% of the homes are closing each month.
There are several reasons for this such as buyers submitting multiple offers on homes but only closing on one, or lenders taking months to approve a short sale and then the Buyer’s financing falls apart, but regardless of the reasons, it begs the question: Are there benefits of a back-up offer?
From my point of view (as a Buyer’s Agent), since 3 out of 4 homes are NOT closing each month, why not consider putting in a back-up offer if it’s on a home that the Buyer likes and there is reason to believe it may not close with the first-position Buyer?
While some agents only want to show homes “actively” for sale, there is enough evidence to suggest that there is lots of inventory that may be a better fit for the Buyer and it’s worth pursuing a back-up offer in some cases.
Determining WHEN it’s worth pursuing is for another post! Subscribe here to get the follow up to this topic!
Happy Buying!
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