What Measuring Your Local Real Estate Market Against National Trends Can Tell You

You hear or read it all the time: “The real estate market is burning hot right now,” or “It’s a seller’s (or buyer’s) market,” or “Interest rates are at an all-time low.” When these headlines come across your newsfeed maybe you think about them on a larger scale but wonder if those blanket statements could have any immediate impact on your personal situation. 

The trends that make headlines can and do have an impact on the average home buyer or seller. By taking national trends and scaling them down to a micro level, there are benefits you can reap and insights you can gain in doing so. Below are five particular metrics that will help you and your real estate professional make the right decisions when buying or selling a home. 

Median Sales Prices 

Knowing national averages will help you determine what the market is doing in your own neck of the woods. How are local sales prices performing against the median sales price? Are homes in your area overpriced? Underpriced? Or appropriately priced? For sellers, knowing this information can help you to price your home competitively for a quick sale. For buyers, this may let you know if you are overpaying based on factors like inflation or inventory in your particular zip code.

Average Down Payment

As you follow trends and national statistics on what average down payments are across the board, this will give you a greater understanding of how much cash you will need to save up in order to make a home purchase. Various mortgage products require varying percentages of the home’s purchase price for a down payment. As national housing and lending trends change, this number can fluctuate considerably.

Average Years of Experience of Real Estate Professionals

While this may first seem like an odd metric to research, knowing the average years of experience for real estate professionals and comparing your own potential real estate professional’s credentials could tell you a lot. According to Small Biz Genius, there are currently over two million licensed real estate agents in the United States with an average of around nine years in the industry. Knowing this data could be the difference in selecting an agent who has tenured experience versus someone who is new to the field. 

How Agents Are Utilizing Marketing

By taking time to investigate national real estate trends in marketing, you may discover many state-of-the-art, innovative tools, and techniques that are available to agents these days. When you begin your own search for a local agent, you will have a set of criteria to help you find the right agent for you—one who is taking advantage of all of the latest technology and marketing strategies to help you list or sell your home efficiently and for top dollar. 

Generational Trends

Generational trends in real estate may be one of the least suspecting but most important data metrics to discover. As military families who often have resale at the forefront of their minds, knowing these trends may make the difference between getting stuck with a home you love but cannot sell or a home that you love that follows some loose guidelines on size, features, and location. Where Millennials and Generation Z folks have seen the large, sprawling homes of Boomers and Gen X’ers who may have lost big in the last decade’s housing crash, they are now prioritizing smaller spaces, saving up for bigger down payments, and selecting locations based on proximity work and fun. 

When you think about “doing your research” before buying or selling a home, it is always a good idea to take what’s going on at the neighborhood, local, city, or state level and zoom out a bit to see how and where it all aligns with national metrics as well.