Market Update Summer 2024 | El Paso Texas | Best Advice for Buyers and Sellers

Market Update Summer 2024 | El Paso Texas | Best Advice for Buyers and Sellers

Welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is John Peña. And my name is Alejandro Sosa. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the market update of real estate in El Paso, summer 2024. Yes, summer 2024. In a nutshell, I'd say the market is pretty slow. Sluggish, perhaps is the

word to use. This should really come as no surprise to anybody. We've been talking about this forever. And the news is talking about it forever as well. Interest rates are still right now around 7%, which is something that really we're not used to because everybody got spoiled a couple of years ago with 3% interest rates. Keep in mind, the national average over

the last 50 years is 8%. So 7% isn't that crazy. But for somebody like myself, I bought my house in 2020 and my interest rate's 2.75%. So I'm one of those rate locked sellers, right? Why would I sell my house now and train my epic interest rate for one, twice that? So anyway, for new buyers though, interest rate 7%, why inflation, some economic turmoil and everything like that.

So in a nutshell, the real estate market here in El Paso is slow. Certainly not like bubble going to blow up like, oh no, like the sky is falling. No, not at all. Still a very stable market. But why don't you talk a little bit about what you're seeing for buyers this summer? And then maybe I'll talk a little bit about what we're seeing for our sellers. Yeah. So for buyers,

it's a little bit obviously different than how it was. Remember during COVID, we talked about this. It was pretty crazy. It was very competitive. You have to put 40,000, 20,000 over asking price in order to be competitive. Now it's not the case. As you say, it's a lot slower. It's nothing like, oh, everything is horrible, but it is slower. What does that mean for buyers? Now, if you're a

buyer, for the most part, if a home is reasonably priced, it's going to sell usually for close to asking price. Sometimes a little bit less. It just depends. Now there are a few homes still that will sell for over asking price and will sell right away in a week. Those are homes that are very popular, great price, pretty much a common price to sell. Those are still happening. But for the

most part, as a buyer, you do have a lot of options, especially when it comes also a new construction. During COVID, if you want a new construction, you had to wait a year if you were lucky. Now, since things are a little bit slower, a lot of these builders are not only offering different incentives, but they have a lot of options when it comes into different timelines.

If you want move-in ready, they have some options. If you need a move-in in two months, they might have some options. Before, like I said, there was nothing. So there's a lot of options as well. Like I said, for buyers, it's looking better. But a lot of people because it's like, hey, I've looked at other places like Austin, everything is falling apart and I want to

offer 20, 30,000 under asking price. That's just not happening here. Like you said, it's still a strong market, but it's just very slow. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely right. There's plenty of supply right now because homes are taking longer to sell and then new ones come on. And so the inventory starts to back up. So buyers have more choices. But the reality is that there are less

buyers. There are simply plenty of buyers who either can't get qualified for a loan with the interest rates the way they are, or buyers are sitting on the fence hoping that things are going to improve. So yeah, nailed it. For sellers, what we're seeing is essentially, like Alex said, lower price point homes are always going to sell. Homes at around $200,000, assuming they're in

decent condition and decent locations, they're going to sell easy. We have plenty of examples of this. A home we just sold on Canyon Sage, literally like the first day it went active, we already had it under contract. So $200,000 up to $250,000 below, those homes are going to sell pretty consistently. Once you start going above $300,000, $400,000, homes are still selling,

but they are taking a lot longer to sell. I have a perfect example. We had a home at 7784 Enchanted Circle. You can see the video on our YouTube channel. This home is located on the west side in Enchanted Hills, a great area, great home. Everything about the home is fantastic. Priced fine. It took six and a half months to finally sell this home. So, you know, more expensive

homes are taking a little bit longer. I mean, that's just the reality of it. And we don't really see that changing. At the beginning of the year, we were both kind of, we watched the news and check in with all these different sources. We were both optimistic that, oh, maybe the feds are going to cut interest rates at the end of the year. I think that is highly, highly unlikely. I'm reading things

now that are saying, you know, buckle up because things aren't really going to move in any meaningful way for two to five years, which means if that's accurate, that the interest rates are going to stay around 7% more or less for the next several years and home prices you would think would be coming down. But again, that is not the case. Look at any YouTube video and there's almost

unanimous consent that home prices are going to keep going up. Not crazy like they were after COVID, but you know, nominally two to 4% a year. So why is that? Because there just isn't the supply of homes in our country for enough people that want them to get them. Yeah. And that is a good point you bring because a lot of people are like, Hey, I want to buy a

home in El Paso, but I'm worried that prices are going to just drop. And then I'm going to be, I don't, I don't personally think that. I mean, like we talked about, I think El Paso's market is pretty strong. There's a lot of growth happening. A lot of big companies are moving here. So I don't think that's going to be the case. I don't think that things are going to go

up in price crazy either. I think it's just going to be slowly going up. Like we've seen year over year. So that's something that some people worry about. And I just don't think that's going to happen here in El Paso at least. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. We are a very stable housing market. So one other thing I will mention that I think is a problem in the housing market in El

Paso is property taxes. In April, the El Paso County appraisal district puts out your 2024 appraised value. And then May is everybody freaking out and trying to protest it. But that is a problem. The property taxes are really feeling a little bit, I want to say out of control, but they are really pushing the prices. So that is a bit of a problem. But unfortunately,

I don't see much of a solution in sight on that. So that's just something I guess to put out there. But other than high property taxes, El Paso is still a great market. Like you said, yeah, the economy here is growing with the potential for El Paso being a border city with Juarez, especially if our economy does kind of bring manufacturing and industry back. El Paso is

poised to do, I mean, really, really well. So yeah, I'm not concerned at all for like the housing market, like losing value. My only concern is that property taxes are going to continue to just kind of creep up and up and up. And that's going to create issues for people. Yeah, definitely interest to see what's actually going to happen, right? Because they say we were

kind of hopeful because they were mentioning that the interest rate might drop. Now it doesn't seem to be the case. So let's see what happens. Like I said, I'm not worried. Like some people think that things are going to be horrible. I think, like you said, we have a strong market, even though it's slow, but it's going to continue to move and hopefully things get better soon.

But yeah, I'm just excited. Like every time we talk about this, this is what's going to happen the next few, three, four, five, six months. Because like, again, El Paso keeps growing. It's crazy. You know, I've had a couple of clients who were here even three years ago, four years ago, and they're like, oh man, it's slightly different. Like the east side is just,

it's just growing. So again, it's exciting. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Which is a great positive note to leave it on. So thank you so much for checking out the video and we'll see you in the next one.