What is happening in the real estate market right now? It's a little crazy Daisy. A recent article for Redfin just came out that said, the average American family needs to make an income of $115,000 to afford the average American home. What does that really mean? It means that last year, it was 100,000 you had to make which was up 15% from last year. But did you know that pre pandemic four years ago, that number is 50% higher? So four years ago, your median family income had to be about $15,000 to buy the average American home. The other staggering fact attached to that is that the average American family makes less than that by about $40,000. So basically, the average American home has now out price of the average American family. Add to that the fact that interest rates are rising, and we are in a bit of an interesting situation. In an ideal world. When interest rates go up, it usually puts pressure on home pricing. But we're not seeing that happen right now. I think we're not seeing that happen right now is because we're still so low on inventory. It's starting to take up but it's not taking up near enough to meet the demand that we're seeing right now. So as interest rates continue to go up, we're gonna continue to see pressure especially on first time homebuyers.

So what does that mean to you? It means that you need to start to be creative if you're a buyer. You need to understand what some of the other options are. Seller concessions, the three to one buy down how to properly negotiate to get the best deal for yourself and put yourself in the best position going forward. What does it mean to sellers it means that if somebody's coming up to look at your house right now, trust me, they are serious. So you need to be priced appropriately. You need to be open to seller concessions, to three to one buy dollars and to understand what that means for you.

We at the JWP group work every day to try and keep our finger on the pulse of what's happening here as well as across the country and I would love to be a resource for you as with anybody on my team. But please know that if you're going to list in this market, you're listing it with someone who understands what's happening, and understands how to properly price you. And if you don't know me, my name is Julie Winter-Peaz, I'm the team leader of the JWP group at REMAX Property Pros and I help people just like you buy, sell and relocate into beautiful northern Wisconsin. Let me know if I can help.