Home offers facing competing bids have plunged over the past 6 months

Fewer homebuyers are facing even a single competing offer. And
when buyers find themselves in bidding wars, the field is less
crowded, according to a report from Redfin
In Orlando, Florida, the share of home offers that faced at least one competing offer fell
from 81 percent to 37 percent over the last year, according to Redfin.
BY DANIEL HOUSTON
Inman August 12, 2022.
Well over half of the home offers written by Redfin agents in July
faced no opposing bids, a continuation of a six-month pullback in the
competition through which the company’s buyer clients have had to
wade.
The Seattle-based real estate company reported on Friday, that 44
percent of the proposed purchase contracts written by its agents
ended up in a multiple-offer situation, down from 51 percent the month
before and 70 percent as recently as January.
It’s a dramatic scaleback that has returned bidding wars to their lowest
levels since April 2020, when early shutdowns and uncertainty over
the spread of the coronavirus briefly slowed the housing market to a
crawl.
Even for those buyers who found themselves in a bidding war in July,
the market became noticeably less crowded. The typical home in a
multiple-offer situation had 3.5 offers last month, down from 4.1 the
month before and 5.3 in July of last year, Redfin said.
“The market is wildly different than it was a few months ago,” Alexis
Malin, a Redfin agent in Jacksonville, Florida, said in the report.
“Buyers are competing with one to two other offers instead of four to
eight. Some aren’t facing competition at all.”
As mortgage rates have risen from below 3 percent to above 5
percent this year, many buyers have been priced out of the market,
and demand has declined as a result.
But many of Redfin’s clients, who remain on the hunt for a home in
recent weeks, have felt empowered to make more buyer-friendly
offers.
“Buyers have also started writing offers for less than sellers’ list prices
— a reversal from the height of the pandemic, when homes were
going for tens of thousands of dollars over asking,” Malin said. “I
haven’t written an over-asking offer in a month.”
The swift one-eighty in bidding-war levels was most obvious in places
like Orlando, Florida, where the share of home offers that faced
competition was cut in half from 81 percent a year ago to 37 percent in
July.
Similar annual declines in the share of offers that faced multiple bids
were recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, from 73 percent last year to
33 percent in July; Sacramento, California, from 73 percent to 34
percent; Charlotte, North Carolina, from 71 percent to 35 percent; and
Colorado Springs, from 71 percent to 37 percent.
With fewer homebuyers — and more selective ones — remaining on
the market, homesellers in some areas are having to be careful once
more not to overshoot when setting the list prices for their homes.
In the report, Redfin agent Brynn Rea said she tells her seller clients
to focus once more on maximizing the appeal of the home before
hitting the market.
“Sellers should make sure their home is move-in ready and not
overpriced,” said Rea, who works in Spokane, Washington. “They
should do everything possible to make their property pristine for the
masses — invest in updates and make it feel fresh. Doing little things
like replacing faulty faucets or painting walls will help sell a home
more quickly.”