LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – It continues to be a seller’s market in the Capital City.
While the housing market has improved, there are still too many buyers and not enough homes in Lincoln.
As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, there are 65 single-family homes on the market, but Melanie Dawkins of real estate company KW Elite, said we need at least three times that number to satisfy buyers.
Alexis Wingert is settling in slowly but surely into her first home, but it wasn’t easy getting there.
“Anyone that has been trying to buy over the past few years knows it is crazy,” she said. “Gosh, I put in probably five to six different offers and was just getting beat out by people going $20,000 over, all cash, and I was like, ‘Well, as a 26-year-old, I can’t be doing anything like that.’ ”
After a few months of constant defeat, she finally made an offer that stuck.
She now calls a south Lincoln property home: a house built 120 years ago, with an old character. It was exactly what she was looking for.
“I pulled up in the driveway of this one, and I was like, I think this is the home for me,” Wingert said.
But you could consider her lucky. For many looking to buy right now, it’s chaos.
“I have a handful of buyers that I have been looking for homes for, for many, many months, some over the course of a year, a year and a half,” Dawkins said. “It’s tough because, over the course of the year, you’re sending them a listing, ‘Hey do you want to go see this?’ Either it’s not quite what they’re looking for, but it’s all that there is to send them, or we go out and look at homes, and we submit an offer after offer after offer and don’t get it.”
And the housing market could become more slippery, with interest rates edging toward 5% and mortgage rates hitting 4.5%, numbers we weren’t expected to see until at least fall.
Experts anticipate that as the year goes on, those rates will continue going up.
“There is definitely a lot of change happening right now, and it has people reevaluating what they want and when they want it,” Dawkins said.
It all boils down to an increase in buyers and a lack of listings.
New constructions came to a halt because of high lumber prices and pandemic restrictions last year. Although they are slowly starting to pop up again, they’re going quickly.
“People are buying homes that right now are just dirt because they say look at a house on the drawings and they say, ‘Here is what it’s going to look like, trust us,’ and they go for it.” Dawkins said. “But it’s a way to secure the house you want and where you want it, too. Because if it’s important to you, in this market, take those leaps and just go for it.”
Dawkins said the Country Club neighborhood and anything east of 84th Street seem to be sought-after areas.
She said if you’re looking to buy a home in this market, patience is key, and get yourself a good Realtor and lender because you’re going to need it.