Nice homes are always in demand in Greater Hartford. Despite what we hear reported about a wholesale exodus from the state, fully updated properties tend to sell. There are people who want to live in this area, and many of those people would prefer to buy a home in which they don’t have to make many repairs.
We recently wrote about a decrease in buyer demand in core price points. The buyer pool doesn’t seem to be quite as deep as it has been in past years. One of the consequences of this trend is that buyers are able to be more selective in the homes they pursue. What qualified as move-in ready as recently as last year is no longer good enough. Today’s buyers want a home to be perfect. Done. Literally just unpack their suitcases.
I’ve heard a surprising number of stories from agents this year about how their buyer clients couldn’t get over trivial “problems” with a home. As an extreme example, someone told me a home was ruled out because of the paint color of one of the rooms. Really?!? Painting a wall is as basic as it gets. Everything else was fine, but the bright pink master bedroom was a dealbreaker? On a related subject, someone with essentially zero tolerance for repairs shouldn’t be buying a home.
Homes are large and complicated structures with many systems working together. Only a small percentage of the properties that are listed for sale can be considered move-in ready. Buyers are even more picky this spring than they have been in the recent past, setting the move-in ready bar extremely high.