Home Sellers Are Giving Up — Is a Housing Correction Finally Coming?

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Sellers are yanking, yanking homes off the markets. Actually, the pulling homes off the market at the fastest pace since 2020. Now, financial guy, right? we just deal with stocks and bonds, people’s portfolios. No, no, we help people with everything. And yes, do we advise people on purchases and real estate? Absolutely. And I’ve written many columns.

On these topics, and we’ve discussed it over the years. Well, this is the story here is more frustrated home sellers giving up, giving up, right? In the all-important spring market. 5.8% of all home listings were pulled off the market in April. That ties with December for the highest share of homes delisted since March of 2020. Okay, pandemic time.

Okay. All right. Higher mortgage rates, gas prices, weaker consumer confidence. All of this stuff is playing a part. Yes. Okay. You know what else is playing a part too? Things got out of control. They got very expensive. I have often here on the program tried to explain to people, again, this is the you know the grand, a lot of conventional wisdom when it comes to.

Home ownership in real estate, which is just crap. conventional wisdom, as we’ve said, you know, said an ad nauseum over the past 26 years doing this show is poison. They they just BS you. real estate agents, and I’m sorry, I know I’ve got a lot of them listening here to this program, and I’ve got some friends that are in this business, and there’s some great ones out there. but

You know, the whole structure of that business, it’s a bit of a BS market, if you you don’t understand that. again, both the buyer and the seller, they get paid based upon how expensive the house is. So what’s the incentive to look for a low-cost home? I that doesn’t make any sense to me. kind of like the inverse of what I do for a living. But anyway, neither here nor there. Hey, again, you got a good real estate agent, you want to sell for the highest. great. It’s fantastic. Just understand.

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What you’re doing. It’s your home. Okay? Pay close attention here. It’s not a bank, and it’s not a great and wonderful invest. it’s always a great investment. No, it’s a necessity. You have to live somewhere. Right? Not gonna pitch a tent.

Now, you know, it’s reality. You have to you have to live somewhere. Home may mean a lot of things to you. Place for memories, time with the kids, all sorts of stuff. But let’s understand what it is. Okay? Again, that that’s part of the problem. I’ll I’ll do this myself. I’ve owned five I’m in my fifth home. I am in my fifth home. Every home that I have bought and sold.

Aside from one. I, you know, based upon what I bought it at, based upon what I bought it at and what I sold it out, I was up. And up at I’m putting this in air quotes, okay? I’m not bragging here. Up big. One house that I lived in for 10 years. Okay. Ugh, what did I maybe?

Got out now, a little less than 10 years. I got out the same price that I bought it at. Now, why am why am I explaining this? Pay close attention. Okay?

What I bought and what I sold. Okay. Does that take into account the upkeep on the house? take into account any improvements I made on the house, anything like that. Property taxes, interest. No. No. Okay. The reality of the situation is okay, if you didn’t need to live in a home and you just stuck your money.

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Into a simple index fund, SP 500 index fund, you’re gonna do better. You would have done better. With that being said, people like you have five homes. Yeah, five homes and yeah, in under, think about it, yeah. In under 30 years. Let’s let’s say 25. Having five years, yeah. that doesn’t make any sense. Well, certain circumstances.

Okay. First home. Again, I only had one child at time. Then comes two. Then in-laws. I need a bigger house. Okay. Moving to a different location. all these various different things. There were reasons behind it. But I went into every home that I bought. again, I look for good value. I bought a home during that COVID period of time because prices were down. I said, you know what?

I got a downsize from this. This is a great up. Went ahead and did that. Okay. Did well. All of these things put them aside. Okay. I don’t want you to think if you’re looking at buying a home as it being an investment. I want you to think about it in terms of your life. You do not want to be house poor.

You don’t wanna be housed. That’s the last thing in the world you want to do. You wanna be able to enjoy your house. You don’t want your house to be a burden. You’re gonna have to pay for it. You’re gonna pay for upkeep, stuff’s gonna break, all these various different things. I I get all that.

Okay, life is stressful enough that you’re gonna be dealing with the stress that goes along with that. Another part of the problem is as well, is that, yeah, I think people are concerned. What’s this AI stuff? Am I gonna be stable in my job? I know the Congress bipartisan legislation pushing for this housing bill. They want to get all these people in homes and all this stuff. Well, you know, unless you are.

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Pretty stable and certain about your jobs and your career, all that that good stuff. you might want to rent. You might want to rent for there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Quite frankly, people overextend themselves, they get themselves into and for what? For what? It it don’t do that. It doesn’t make any sense.

Part of the issues we’re having now. We also have, again, this is a national story when it talks about this. When we talk about real estate in this country, they always nationalize it. Certain markets are different than others. That’s just face facts. Certain markets, in many respects, they’re not gonna drop by much based upon their location to a city, based upon location to jobs. That’s that’s reality. would I like to see right now, and I’ve talked about this before.

I would love to see. I would love to see a housing correction. I’d love to see prices drop. I don’t again, look at my house, I don’t even consider it part of my net worth for criminal. I it’s it’s a thing. Okay? I made it the way I want it to. I enjoy it. I enjoy it. I love it when the kids are home. I love it when I have friends over. It’s a thing.

If you could handle your home like that in the same way where you, again, I’ve talked about, you know, it’s a different topic. We’ve talked about before, taking Social Security out of the equation, you’re in a good spot. You don’t want to retire on Social Security, and you don’t want to retire on your house. So, yeah, homes are getting yanked off the market. Good. Let the prices drop.

Let it be more affordable for young people. If the situation presents itself and it’s the right situation, they can get in at a better price. Overall, that’s going to be much, much better for the overall economy. Watchdog on Wall Street.com.