This is not surprising anyone who has been in the market for real estate. It's a hot time to sell your home, but a not so hot time to buy one.

Forbes Magazine has listed Grand Rapids as the 8th hottest real estate market in the country, if you're a seller.

Prices have gone through the roof, and so if you're planning on selling your home, you're in a perfect time to put it on the market.

This bodes well for empty nesters who are planning on retiring and leaving the area, or people who were moving away to begin with. It present a quandary if you want to sell your home and stay, because you're going to have to find a place yourself, and that is not easy right now.

Forbes assesses the GR real estate market like this:

Grand Rapids is the fastest growing city in Michigan and one of the fastest growing in the Midwest. Though quickly growing, Grand Rapids managed to keep housing prices relatively stable for years. In May 2020, the sales-to-list price ratio was 99.2% in the Grand Rapids metro area. Now, a year later, the sales-to-list price ratio exceeds 105%. Equally significant is the huge increase in the share of homes going off the market in two weeks’ time. Last May, the share was 65.4% of homes, but by the end of May 2021, 81.5% of homes that went on the market were off it within two weeks.

Not a week goes by where I don't get an offer from a real estate agent to sell my home "immediately". And that's all well and good, except where would I go. I have a very low note and only 8 years left on my mortgage. I like livin' cheap, so I ain't goin' nowhere.

But, I have empathy for those trying to buy a house these days. Finding a good home and not overpaying is right now almost impossible.

The Top 10 Seller's Markets

1. Oakland, CA

2. Rochester, MI

3. Austin, TX

4. San Jose, CA

5. San Francisco, CA

6. Seattle, WA

7. Buffalo, NY

8. Grand Rapids, MI

9. Eugene, OR

10. Denver, CO

The 100 Best Places to Live in the Midwest

 

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