As we close the door on 2025, we’ve been spending some time reflecting on the year behind us. Like many businesses, we can point to the numbers — and they do matter. This year, we listed and sold 22 homes, helped 29 buyers purchase a home, hosted 4 client appreciation events, made 51 community give-back donations, and sponsored 6 community-wide events.
But the truth is, those numbers only tell part of the story.
If you’ve wondered why certain homes seem to fly off the market while others take longer to sell, the answer often comes down to condition. As life gets busier, buyers are increasingly prioritizing homes that are truly move-in ready. This means fully updated; including newer kitchens and baths, modern HVAC systems, solid roofs, newer appliances, etc.
At McSharry & Associates, we really enjoy helping people buy their next home; but sometimes we find ourselves talking prospective buyers out of purchasing. Here are some situations where we find waiting might be the right choice.
Open Houses:
Open houses can be an effective tool for creating a fear of loss for buyers. Knowing that an open house is scheduled can motivate interested buyers to see the house and make a decision quickly in an effort to avoid the perceived competition an open house might generate. The market over the past several years has been quite strong and we haven’t found ourselves hosting many open houses as simply listing the home creates a sense of urgency for buyers. As the market cools, it’s possible that we will offer them again in order to increase the fear of loss and create the sense of urgency that has been inherent in the market recently.
Sometimes while advising our clients about the best way to achieve their real estate goals, we end up having delicate and potentially awkward conversations. We would love it if every pricing report we provided a prospective seller exceeded what they expected their home to be worth and if every house we entered was photo ready with no checklist of tasks to complete before listing. It would be great if every buyer was optimally qualified to purchase a home that exactly met their search criteria and if their wish list matched the inventory of homes in our area. We all know life isn’t like that.
The structural contingency is one of the three contingencies in the contract to purchase real estate in the Capital Region. It enables buyers to hire a certified inspector to evaluate the home they intend to buy, with the objective of looking for substantial defects (any single item worth $2000 or more to repair). Both buyers and sellers often have questions about this part of the process and here are a few of the most common ones.
It’s been almost a year since the big “change” in real estate world. In case you missed it, offers of compensation for buyer’s agents are no longer listed on the Multiple Listing Service. Here’s what we have been seeing and doing over the past year.
When we discuss pricing with prospective clients we generally say pricing is 80% science and 20% art. Understanding the nuances of the market and the unique aspects of each home is of paramount importance to accurately pricing a property. Let us tell you a bit more about what goes into our pricing reports.
Those who know us, know that we prefer to spend our time marketing our seller clients’ properties and helping our buyers find their new home than to focus on marketing ourselves. We always say that you will never see our faces on billboards or shopping carts because that sort of self promotion is just not our thing.
There are several factors that have contributed to the protracted low inventory we have been experiencing for the past 5+ years, including: