end of summer real estate

the back to school norm in real estate is becoming a thing of the past

Feature story

Traditional thinking was that when school began at the end of summer, the home real estate market would slow down. Well, with APS students hitting the classrooms again on Monday, it might be time for traditional thinking to take a time out.

changing demographics

There’s no lull in sight, said several local Realtors. “The market in the last week has just gone wild,” said Marg VanKlasen, a Santa Fe Realtor who also has a rental company. “It just happened like in the last week. I wish I could say why, but I really just don’t know. I’ve been in it so long, I used to think I knew it all and now I know I don’t know anything.” Missy Ashcraft, who works under the Keller Williams’s banner, said the changing demographics of buyers and sellers is changing the perception that summer is the best time to buy or sell a house. “I don’t see a significant change because school is going back,” she said. “I’m not sure that the market is that dependent on the families that are moving around.”

John Kynor, owner of Q Reality, said he’s used to seeing a slowdown as school approaches, but so far, that does not appear to be materializing yet. “We’re still having a fair amount of closings, they’re kind of late stragglers who started later in the summer. They didn’t start the process early on in the school vacation,” he said. “But we haven’t noticed a sizeable decrease in the amount of closings and we haven’t seen a lot of slowdown in buyer traffic or sellers closings.” As a matter of fact, Kynor said, “we’ve seen a heavy amount of buyer traffic and phone calls. Just on my street two new homes came up for sale.”

summer market

This whole summer has kind of defined expectations, said Cathy Colvin, who works under Kurstin Johnson at Vista Encantada Realtors. “For me, it’s strong and I’ll have a crazy two weeks, then it slows way down,” she said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it.” Still, the back-toschool issue hasn’t really been a factor in her business for some time. “Recently, back to school hasn’t affected business as much,” Colvin said. “The only thing is, people who have kids, they’re the only ones that try to make the moves in the summer. But everybody else sometimes wait until now. It’s been a very strange market. I haven’t been able to pinpoint what’s going on. It’s been very unusual.” Avoiding the summer sales market can actually be a smart move, Ashcraft said, zagging, as it were, as most others are

zigging. “I don’t think people need to facilitate or adapt to that specific condition of summer selling or buying,” she said.

“A lot of people say the month to put a house on the market is May, and I don't necessarily agree. People buy houses every day of the year, even Christmas. From a marketing standpoint, it’s about supply and demand.” The key is to get your house on the market when it’s ready. “If you feel like nobody is buying a house in the middle of winter, that’s really the wrong approach,” Ashcraft said. “If the house is priced right, if it’s in excellent condition and you have a proper marketing campaign, it will sell.” It’s all about making sure you’re ready as a buyer or seller, she said. “If I have sellers looking to put their house on the market in October or November, that’s what we do,” Ashcraft said. “It all boils down to their need, especially if they’re not in a huge hurry, let’s get it on the market. My favorite time to put a house on the market is in February. My business takes a significant increase in February.”

seasonal changes

Part of that can be in a way tied to the Super Bowl, Kynor said, as it’s kind of unofficially seen as the final holiday of the season. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the Super Bowl,” he said. “But in my 14 years in the business, I’ll take this opportunity to relax and then as soon I go to my last super bowl party, it’s like someone switches the light on for real estate. I want to beat the rush, and I want to beat all the other sellers. I know absolutely it has nothing to with the Super Bowl, but that’s the last benchmark that I wait for before the market starts to return. It is a seasonal thing with the weather starting to warm, up, now the grass is starting to get green.” One thing is clear, however, is that right now the market is bursting, Ashcraft said. “The important distinction is the market as a whole, across the board is up month over month to last year and year-to-date over last year, it’s significant. It’s conspicuously increased both by percentage and volume. The important thing is, although the market is certainly healthy with two to three months of inventory, an important distinction is that the under $250,000 range that is still the stronger part of the market.”

That ties into where our biggest sales demographic is and may also explain why the back-to-school mantra may be in the past. “I would say, at least in my experience, a lot of my business are people who want to downsize, people that are either retiring or leaving their big houses and moving into smaller houses,” Ashcraft said. “People are moving down from 4,000 square feet or 5,000 square feet homes and moving into one-story, 2,000 square feet homes. So that market isn’t affected by the school year, with the exception maybe of seeing families moving into those larger houses.”