There has recently been a lot of talk about shadow inventory and exactly what it is. 

Shadow inventory is the number of people who would consider selling their property, but do not currently have their property on the real estate market. 

Let’s assume that someone has their home listed on the market for $500,000 and they really need to be priced at $450,000.  Sometimes they will take their property off the market and will tell us that if we happen to run into a client who is looking for a property like theirs at $500,000 to let them know – people also sometimes refer to these as “pocket listings”. 

This will often slow down any recovery of a real estate market because if there is any good news increasing activity, this “shadow inventory” will increase the number of listings.

Supply and demand has an effect on prices and we are currently running with a 2-year inventory.  Anything over a 6-month inventory often has a negative effect on prices.

People always ask me when we are going to be in a normal market – I can’t wait until we get to that point.