For over two years, Lehigh Valley Home Buyers have been suffering from a Low Inventory of Homes for Sale.
Currently (September 8th, 2019), according to the Lehigh Valley MLS, there are 1740 residential homes for sale in Lehigh and Northampton Counties.
A couple of years ago, at any given time, there were 4,000 to 6,000 homes for sale in the valley.
The low home inventory has caused a pent up buyer demand and as a result price increases are occurring.
Home Buyers are making offers on homes that are hard to believe.
When someone purchases a used car they may have a mechanic check it out before completing the purchase.
Lehigh Valley Home Buyers are waiving property inspections in order to win out in a multiple offer situation. A home buyer may spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and not even know if there are any problems with the property. I cannot advise a home buyer to do this!
I had a Home Buyer lose a house because the seller told us they would go forward if we paid $5,000 over the list price, waived all inspections and removed the appraisal contingency from the mortgage. The seller had another offer with these terms. The buyer would be purchasing a house and would not know if there were any problems until they moved in and if the house didn't appraise they would have to make up the difference in "cash". The home buyer would have absolutely NO protections on the purchase of a $185,000 home. What?
Home Buyer Beware!
The low inventory is also affecting investors/contractors looking to flip properties.
Out of the 1740 homes for sale in Lehigh Valley, 41 are Bank Owned (Foreclosures) and 16 are Short Sales. A far cry from the couple of hundred distressed properties we had a few years ago. Finding the good deal has gotten very hard to find.
For more information about Lehigh Valley Real Estate, visit www.lehighvalleyhomesonline.com
