Fewer Houses to Show, So Many of them Vacant

While there may be a lot of listings on the market, I am finding that there are fewer and fewer houses to show, and an amazing percentage of what I am showing in town is vacant.

Last weekend I was showing homes to a young, first-time home buying couple. After searching for houses online, they came up with a list of 49 homes that they wanted to know more about, that were in their price range and in the areas of town that they were interested in. They are in a hurry to buy, so we had predetermined that they did not want to look at Short Sales that hadn't been preapproved.

In searching each of those listings on the MLS, I found that 35 were immediately disqualified because they were Short Sales. Four were Short Sales pending Bank approval, one had foundation problems, and on three of them the Sellers wouldn't allow showings that weekend (!). That left us with six properties (out of 49) that were not Short Sales and were available for showing.

Of those six that we looked at, five were vacant. They ended up making an offer on one of those properties, but in looking back over my paperwork, I was struck by how often that scenario has been happening. Lots of houses are ACTIVE on the MLS, but such a large percentage of those are Short Sales. Lots of houses are available, yet so very many of them are vacant. And my question is often, "where have all of those people gone, and where are they living?"