August, 2024 | Brezsny Associates

Oh… By the Way

August 30, 2024Picking up the thread… We’re talking about how difficult it has been for Buyers trying to navigate the longest running, highest appreciating, craziest-making Sellers Market ever. A market defined by declining inventory, skyrocketing prices and ever-increasing degrees of difficulty for anyone trying to crack the code of homeownership. Last week, we discussed the recent good news: A significant drop in interest rates (below 6.5%) and a shifting/softening market brought on by a growing number of active listings. As a result we’re seeing fewer multiple-offers, fewer...

A Housing Crisis has Become the Status Quo

August 30, 2024Continuing the conversation... It’s no secret. In fact, in a world that’s increasingly more polarized, it’s one of the few things everyone seems to agree on - there’s a housing crisis. And there are a thousand ways, big and small, that housing problems impact our quality of life and very few of us remain unscathed whether we’re conscious of them or not. Whenever one of those annual polls is conducted to determine people’s biggest concerns, housing is always at or near the top. And sadly,...

The Test of a First Rate Intelligence

August 30, 2024Continuing the conversation… We were musing about contradictions that often accompany life in an all-consuming, consumer culture. When you think about it, Real Estate offers a great vantage point from which to view human nature. We Realtors don’t just sit in our offices all day like therapists waiting for clients to come into our carefully-crafted work environments for ritual talks about all the changes they hope to make in the future. Rather, we are in the business of making house calls. We go out to...

Good News For Buyers

August 23, 2024Continuing the conversation… talking about the longest, hardest, highest appreciating Sellers’ Market ever and all those Buyers who have struggled so mightily to navigate ten straight years of declining inventory. skyrocketing prices and increasing levels of difficulty. Which Buyers? The ones who were lucky enough to overcome their own inertia and actually buy early on in the market’s up cycle. Also the ones who were so burned out by their own repeated failures that they gave up. And the ones who decided to take a...

Slow Growth’s New/Old Slow Growth Problem

August 23, 2024Picking up the thread... talking about the new slow growth problem that our old slow growth problem has: More homeowners who are slowly growing older and unintentionally impacting the availability and affordability issues that are at the heart of our local housing crisis. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the demographic shift we’re experiencing looks more like the steadily rising waters of a massive sea change than the oft-invoked rush of a Silver Tsunami. By 2030, 1 in 3 people in Santa Cruz will...

There’s Always a Plan B

August 23, 2024I was talking with a client this week after a particularly unsatisfying trip out to look at new listings that just came on the market. Here’s her situation, I have a feeling it might sound a little familiar to some of you. She sold her condo a few months ago, moved into a rental and she’s been looking ever since, still searching for a move-up house that will become her home for a long time to come. There are days she’s hopeful. Days she’s frustrated....

Shoulda Woulda Coulda Bought…

August 16, 2024Continuing the Conversation… talking about what it feels like to be a Buyer and be behind the 8 ball of what can only be described as the most lopsided Sellers market in history… In retrospect, one of the best times to buy was during the Great Recession circa 2009-2011. It was the worst financial crisis in the US since the Great Depression and while prices were tanking a huge inventory of distressed properties (short sales/bank-owned) also hit the market. But conventional loans were tough to...

Keep Santa Cruz Weird (and old?)

August 16, 2024Santa Cruz has aged full circle in recent years, coming back to its roots as one of the oldest Counties in the State. What a long, strange trip it’s been, going from that sleepy little beach town in the 1960s to today’s version which is officially THE oldest county in California and one that shows up on everyone’s list of top ten most expensive places to live on the planet! Santa Cruz has a well-earned reputation for lots of things but who could have imagined...

Not Choosing is a Choice

August 16, 2024Here’s a short meditation for buyers and sellers… Prevailing wisdom says there are no two ways (or even three or four) around it, change Is scary. But Is that really true? Something hit home with more clarity this week while I was helping a client through a difficult transition. It’s not real, actual change that’s scary. That’s just a clever illusion we’re used to fabricating. An obfuscation we manufacture to make it harder to wander outside the perimeter of our tightly-constructed brain maps, past the...

The Hardest Market Ever

August 9, 2024Continuing the conversation…talking about the state of the real estate market and how it feels to be a Buyer in what can only be described as the most lopsided Sellers Market in history. Which of course is another way of saying: “The hardest market ever for Buyers to buy in.” If you’ve bought a house recently or maybe tried and didn’t quite make it, you can relate. And if you’re new to this whole real estate thing or if you’re a jaded Seller who thinks...

The Inventory Starts to Age Out…

August 9, 2024Continuing the conversation... talking about low inventory and its impact on the availability and affordability issues that are at the heart of Santa Cruz County’s worsening housing crisis. For 30+ years now, our market has cycled through periods of relatively low inventory, due in part to deeply-entrenched slow growth policies. But in 2013, just as we were coming out of the depths of the Great Recession, the supply of homes took a precipitous plunge into all-time, record low territory, where it has remained ever since....

The Inevitability of Change

August 9, 2024I love it! Whenever I write a column about “stuff”, readers write back to share their own stories. Like this: We’re guilty as charged...24 years living here and 24 years of accumulating stuff we don’t need. There’s a military term called “blivet” which means cramming 10 gallons of crap into a 5 gallon bucket. That describes our single car garage perfectly. Thanks Tom. We’ll invite you to the garage sale we’ve been planning for 10+ years but haven’t had yet. Blivet! Who knew? Guess everyone...