I have a listing that got lots of showings the first few days on the market. It is now only getting 1-2 showings a week.

I have a new buyer who I have shown everything that is currently on the market. They haven’t liked any of them enough to pull the trigger. We are now just looking at 1-2 houses a week.

Notice a similarity? Both are not getting a lot of activity. Why? The seller has exhausted all the buyers currently in the market. They are waiting for new buyers to enter the market. The buyer has exhausted everything currently on the market. They are waiting for new listings to hit the market. This is how it has always worked, but all the waiting is because there is still a significant shortage of listings.

When there is a new listing that drops on the market, every buyer in that price range will come out to see it. For buyers, it is tough because they are one of those people coming to see the listing as soon as it hits the market. They need to quickly decide if they want the house or not. There is often not a lot of time to sit on the fence when it is a new listing. For sellers, this is your best chance to get multiple offers. It can be easy for a seller to assume they will always get that much traffic. I have had sellers turn down an offer during this period because they think they can get a better one later. They think they will endlessly get 4-5 showings every day. Then it dries up after about day 3 or 4 on the market.

The market is constantly moving. It’s like the sun. You can’t see it move. You just look up in the sky and realize it isn’t in the same place it was the last time you looked. There are new listings and new buyer entering the market every day. (I do realize the sun doesn’t actually move, the earth does. Think of this analogy more as how we refer to the sun setting or rising.)