Cities Plagued by Shrinking Inventory - and guess which one is #1. . . .

Low inventory means higher home prices and buyers competing with each other with multiple offers. It's a reality going on here for awhile in the silicon valley, which is why many agents prefer working with sellers and getting a listing (home for sale) rather than work with buyers. It's not that those agents refuse to work with a buyer because they will, it's just that when you're working with a buyer, it's harder in this market to get them into a home, which means no commission if they don't succeed. 

If you are a buyer looking to get into a home in this market, you must be very serious, pre-approved for a home loan and willing to listen to the advice of your Realtor if you want to stand a chance of getting into the home. Be prepared to compete with other buyers, some of whom will be making All Cash offers. Also be prepared to make an offer possibly well over the asking price (depending on the neighborhood, school districts and some other factors your Realtor will discuss with you). 

The article cites San Jose California as the #1 city with the lowest inventory. San Jose is the heart of the Silicon Valley, and the story is the pretty much the same for the surrounding cities here in the valley. The tech giants here in the valley, such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Intel, keep bringing in more and more workers thus putting strain on housing market. Evidence for this can be seen with low inventory and developers coming in and building mega apartment blocks and charging sky high rents.


Cities Plagued by Shrinking Inventory


More than 1.3 million – or 1.6 percent of the nation’s nearly 85 million residential properties – are vacant. That’s down 9.3 percent from the third quarter of 2015, according to RealtyTrac’s first quarter 2015 Residential Property Vacancy Analysis.

“With several notable exceptions, the challenge facing most U.S. real estate markets is not too many vacant homes but too few,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “The razor-thin vacancy rates in many markets are placing upward pressure on home prices and rents. While that may be good news for sellers and landlords, it is bad news for buyers and renters and could be bad news for all if prices and rents are inflated above tolerable affordability thresholds.”

RealtyTrac analyzed 147 metro areas with at least 100,000 residential properties and found that the following cities had the fewest number of vacant properties in the first quarter:

1. San Jose, California: 0.2%
2. Fort Collins, Colo: 0.2%
3. Manchester, N.H.: 0.3%
4. Provo, Utah: 0.3%
5. Lancaster, Pa.: 0.3%
6. San Francisco: 0.3%
7. Los Angeles: 0.4%
8. Boston: 0.5%
9. Denver: 0.5%
10. Washington, D.C.: 0.5%

Meanwhile, vacancies were highest in the first quarter in these cities:

1. Flint, Mich.: 7.5%
2. Detroit: 5.3%
3. Youngstown, Ohio: 4.4%
4. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas: 3.8%
5. Atlantic City, N.J.: 3.7%
6. Indianapolis: 3%
7. Tampa, Fla.: 2.9%
8. Miami: 2.8%
9. Cleveland: 2.8%
10. St. Louis, Mo.: 2.6%

Source: Realtor Magazine Online from RealtyTrac
http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2016/02/16/cities-plagued-shrinking-inventory?om_rid=AAFmZk&om_mid=_BWw4bMB9Ku34LR&om_ntype=RMODaily