[jeffbee]

In the 90s it was typical for a house to be on the market for 3-6 months before selling. Sellers generally received 1 offer.

Currently the nationwide days-on-market is still way below long-term historical norms and even below recent history. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDDAYONMARUS

[lallysingh]

Part of it is the web. Buyers are looking at easily 10x the number of homes they used to, if you include all the ones they look at online.

They have a much better idea of what's available and what's a good match for what they want.

[pxeboot]

This is huge! I looked at every home listed on Zillow in my area for months before checking out 2 in person and submitting an offer on 1, which was thankfully accepted.

[arcticbull]

That was before the major housing shortage. The US is short about 6M homes by some measure [2], and the Bay Area is short a staggering quantity all by itself, so much so it has its own Wikipedia article. This remains the fault of onerous zoning rules and NIMBYs. [1]

[edit] No supply + high demand = prices go up. Higher interest rates only help at the margins because it doesn't actually change the demand factor which is that the humans in America need a place to live, and the more they make, the more they can afford to pay. And it certainly doesn't change the supply factor!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_shortage

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/america-is-short-more-than-5...

[Optimal_Persona]

FWIW in my East Bay neighborhood, I'm noticing in the last couple months it's taking closer to a week (rather than a day or 2) for "Coming Soon" real estate signs to change to "Sale Pending".

[madengr]

The most popular city, according to Zillow, is Prairie Village, KS.

https://www.zillow.com/research/most-popular-city-2022-31925...

This is about 1 mile from where I live in Overland Park, KS. PV is all single family homes with near zero apartments. Of course the city is trying to re-zone to put in higher density housing, and the population is vehemently opposed to it; I don't blame them. People move there for that reason. Higher density leads to more crime and other frustrations. People learned their lesson from the pandemic.

[UtopiaPunk]

Why would higher population density lead to higher crime rates? Do you have a source for that?

Poverty and general desperation leads to higher crime rates as people resort illegal means to get by. And that's what happens when there is not enough housing for people.

In the United States, we have a whole bunch of terrible housing policies, so maybe people are conflating density for poverty. But you can find many examples across Europe and Asia where there is little correlation between density and crime.

[Kye]

It makes a kind of intuitive sense. If a certain % of human interactions are crime, and you create circumstances where there are more interactions (packed night club, large convention, dense city, etc), you could expect more of all kinds of interactions including crime. Whether that's how it works in reality is another question.

[arcticbull]

See this is exactly what I'm talking about.

- "I want affordable housing!"

- "Hm, ok, how about we build new houses in the places people want to live, increasing supply to meet demand"

- "NOT LIKE THAT"

It's just like the "no take only throw" dog meme.

If you don't want to live next to other people, buy the land around you. If you can't afford the land around you, move further away. There's no reason your tastes should dictate what I can do with my property. I'm sorry, I thought this was America.

[jldugger]

> In the 90s it was typical for a house to be on the market for 3-6 months before selling. Sellers generally received 1 offer.

I wonder if there's been a material shift in who is making offers that won't revert to 90s behavior. Specifically, investment firms specializing in single family housing, who might have more incentives to make a lot of lowball offers and not worry too much whether they win or lose a specific bid.

Obviously you have imitators like Zillow trying to edge in as well, and step back after taking heavy losses, so its hard to say for sure where the new equilibrim will end up at.

[VirusNewbie]

I worry about exactly this. For every house an investment company buys, how many did they bid on which drove the price up?

[gizmo686]

Prices are set on the margin. Loosing bids have relatively little effect.

[jldugger]

Yea, I doubt they're moving prices much, but if people are using "offers recieved" as a metric...

[zer00eyz]

> Specifically, investment firms specializing in single family housing

I dont think I have seen good data that includes or calls out "investors" rather than "investment firms" I suspect that a lot of property ends up in the hands of individuals be it a vacation home, rental, air BB or flip.

[jedberg]

Interest rates in the 90s started in double digits and ended just below that. Also things that weren't mortgages (like cars) still had double digit interest. In 1999 I paid 13% interest for my car.