Market Update - December 2025
As the year comes to a close, I will use the uber professional term I’ve been using all year for our current real estate market - weird. There are still homes that sell with multiple offers in bidding wars but at the same time there are homes in great condition that seem well priced that sit for months. As I have chatted with other high producing agents in our area, we all seem to have that listing that we can’t figure out why it isn’t selling.
So, what’s going on? Buyers certainly don’t feel the sense of urgency that they have since 2020. Homes are spending more days on the market with an average of almost 90 days in both Athens and Oconee. Plus there are current home owners that might want to move but feel those “golden handcuffs” of a super low interest rate keeping them in their current home. These are often the sellers that aren’t willing to compromise too much on their price - if they can’t sell their current home for their target price they won’t be able to afford the next house they want to buy. Rounding out all these factors is the uncertainty in our country’s economy. Uncertainty in the economy as a whole typically leads to more stagnate home sales.
One trend I am seeing this year, something I have never seen in my almost 15 year career, is that buyers and sellers are often not able to come to an agreement. I’ve had sellers get a record number of (in our opinion) ridiculously low ball offers that they won’t even respond to. While doing some research on national trends, I ran across this article, in the WSJ that highlights the same issues I am seeing here in Athens and Oconee County.
Deals falling apart due to repair negotiations is at an all time high. In Georgia, we have something called Due Diligence - the period where buyers can terminate the contract for any reason. I have had more terminations of contracts during this period than ever. Nationally this is also a trend with over 15% terminating and in parts of Georgia it is over 20%. I think this is because buyers feel like they are paying a premium for a home (with a monthly payment to prove it) and sellers aren’t getting quite as much for their homes as they were in the last few years. Many of these sellers also bought their homes when hardly any repairs were being done by sellers since there were so many offers on each house. In their minds, why should they do any repairs if no one did any repairs for them when they bought the house? So, buyers expect a nearly perfect home and sellers feel like they have already compromised on the purchase price of their home and aren’t willing to spend much money to fix things. I recently had a buyer who did pay 4% under the list price. The seller was an investor and so there was no seller’s disclosure giving the ages of any of the systems. The home inspection revealed that both the roof and the HVAC system were well over their life spans and would need to be replaced within the year. There also was evidence of rodents in the attic and a slew of safety issues with electrical and plumbing concerns. With the current cost of things like roofs (typically between $15,000 and $20,000) and HVAC systems (between $10,000 and $20,000), my client asked for a $25,000 price reduction and for a few of the smaller things to be fixed prior to closing. I expected we might do some negotiation on this number but the seller just out right refused to do any repairs or any price reduction! Needless to say, the deal fell apart.
So what does this mean for you as a buyer or seller?
If You Are a Seller - Consider getting a home inspection before you list your home. I don’t recommend that you fix everything on the report - you never know what is actually important to a buyer or what they may want to fix themselves. But, if you get a pre-inspection, you can take care of any of the issues that I often find to be deal breakers in a transaction. You also can go ahead and get quotes for what it may cost to fix any of the things if a buyer asks for them. It takes longer now to get trades out to your home for quotes and often the actual price to fix something becomes inflated in a buyer’s mind without actual quotes. If you are handy, you may be able to fix some of the things yourself before listing. During negotiations, rarely does a buyer want the seller to personally do the fixes.
If You Are a Buyer - We will talk through strategy as we make the initial offer with repairs in mind. If you get a lot off the price of the home, sellers are often less willing to do repairs or drop the price further during due diligence. If you are getting a great deal on the home in the initial negotiations be ready to do more of the work on the house yourself. If the house is priced well to begin with, you are often better off paying close to list price so that you can get the seller to actually fix things. If the house needs a new roof, that $8000 you knocked off the purchase price is a lot less than what you would need to replace the roof.
For Both Buyers & Sellers - You need to know that we are back to sellers fixing issues in a home plus they are more often giving closing costs to buyers. Sellers, be ready to do some things to your home. Buyers, be willing to walk away from the house if the seller is being unreasonable about what they are willing to fix in the house. As a buyer, if you are left with thousands of dollars in repairs as you buy the house, you are essentially overpaying for that home. My job is to educate you on what is reasonable and normal and figure out the best strategy to help you get what you want.