It’s All About The Stats
Posted on 9/27/2021 by David M. Dion
I’ve been a “stats” guy since my university days over 40 years ago. It all started with a class called (of all things) “Statistics”. Then I took another class in marketing research called (of all things) “Marketing Research”.
What followed was an Independent Study wherein I evaluated the determinants of demand for a facility MIT owned. It was pretty cool stuff wherein I identified the target market, sent out survey questionnaires, collected and entered data onto punch cards, then fed the punch cards into a giant computer, and voila all sorts of great statistical information was suddenly available to analyze. The only stressful part was presenting in front of a bunch of MIT types. Well I got through it and even got an “A”.
How do statistics relate to real estate in the Mad River Valley? The answer is “Let me count the ways!”. I’ve been gathering statistics on real estate sales in the Mad River Valley since the late 1980’s. That’s a long time. And the information gathered has allowed me to gain a unique perspective on how sales are trending.
For one thing I can see that in the past two years the number of sales and gross dollar volume of sales have both climbed very steeply. In fact, by the end of 2021 we could see new record highs in both of those data points. Of course, that’s not exactly news to anyone who is following the local market here.
The thing is, when I study the statistics I often look at many of the individual real estate transactions. And some of what I see is really eye-popping. At this point in my real estate career I’ve seen a great majority of properties in the region. And I’ve had the pleasure of selling some of the properties as many as three times over the years. So, I study the statistics and I also see a lot of what the statistics are referring to.
For me the individual sales that really stand out these days are some of the sales wherein there was no real estate agent involved. For example, I saw one sale that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than if it were listed for sale with a real estate agent. Yup, the sellers really saved on the real estate commission on that one! And the buyer scored a fatty!!
In another sale I saw the seller bank perhaps an extra $100,000. If ever there was a time when the buyer should have used a buyer’s agent this was one of them!
In a third scenario the seller had the property listed for sale with a real estate agent for many years at a hyper-inflated price. Then within a few months of the listing agreement expiring the property sold for almost half of the listed price in a private sale. What in the world was that seller thinking!
There is a very simple and straightforward moral to this story and it’s this: Whether you are a seller or a buyer there is no more important time to be employing the services of a real estate agent. In a market like this knowledge is critical in order to be able to make good purchase and sale related decisions.
At Mad River Valley Real Estate we are dedicated to providing our clients with the best information available in order to help them to make informed real estate and financial decisions. Our dedication to this level of service guarantees your satisfaction. Call on us anytime, we are here to serve you!
Circa 1982
