17 years. That’s how long I’ve been in real estate. Man, have I seen a lot!

When I got into this in the spring of 2005, here is what it was like:

1. No realtor wanted to work with buyers.

2. It took no real skill to list a house and sell it since they were selling so fast.

3. We all thought the market would be like this forever.

4. Affordability was an issue and people were considering moving outside of Lexington to find cheaper housing……until gas shot up to $3 a gallon.

Here we are in 2022 and all that is still the same at the moment:

1. No realtor wants to work with buyers now since all you do is write offer after offer on every new listing in any buyer’s price range.
2. It takes even less skill to list and sell a house today since you don’t even need to know what the house is worth. Today you could list the house at 9:AM for $1 and by 5:PM the same day you’ve got 5 offers all at market value. The moment being a realtor gets a little tough, you will see 25% of all realtors get out of the business……starting with the ones who suck at being a realtor but are brilliant at self promotion.
3. We still think it will stay this way forever. It won’t. While I think the market will stay strong short of a major economic catastrophe, it will slow down. Houses still sold in the late 70s and early 80s when interest rates were the highest they have ever been. Don’t think for a minute that 5% or even 7% will kill the market. Don’t think that inflation will kill it either. Wages will rise. They have in every inflationary time. Right now they haven’t caught up to inflation but they will. If you made $1600 a month in the 80s and your mortgage was $400, that is the same percentage as if you make $6400 a month now and have a mortgage of $1600.
4. Affordability is still an issue. Used to be finding a first home under $100k was hard. Now it is hard to find anything decent for less than $200k. Many people that work in Lexington have been shopping in surrounding towns for cheaper prices. I have always discouraged that for a couple of reasons. I did the same in the late 90s with my first house. I was driving back and forth between Lexington and Winchester all the time and hated it. What I saved on the mortgage I spent on gas, tires and maintenance for my car. I encourage people to live where their life is. If work and your social life are in Lexington, well, you should live in Lexington. Also, I remembered what gas hitting $3 a gallon did to the market back then. It killed the first time buyers interest in buying outside of Lexington. Now $5 a gallon seems to be the magic price that keep people from doing this.