The thrill of daring adventure begins the moment you step into the realm of virtual reality, browsing limitlessly at all that is offered. Phenomenal 3-D makes the pictures and videos feel almost like being there; almost, because you aren’t really there. A couple of senses are left blank in this venue. It’s all a bit strange and impersonal. Pictures and videos are wonderful two-dimensional sensations, but they just don’t allow for the smell and touch that evoke emotion to associate later with the experience. They are flat and tasteless.
Although it is a lot like playing an enjoyable online game, it lacks the warmth of working alongside a caring RE/MAX Alliance Associate while actually choosing a house. A place to live a real life, where we’d put real furnishings and move into. Having all those boundless options about wall colors, furniture pieces and easily arranging and rearranging endlessly is all a fun game, but surreal when considering actually buying a new home.
Overly sterile and impersonal, it isn’t even close to the real thoughts and feelings you’d expect to be feeling, as you would when walking through an actual house, peeking into closets, opening cabinet doors, pulling out drawers and deciding which of your possessions would go where.
As fun as the virtual touring and decorating may be, something essential is definitely missing.
Virtual home sales via the internet may become the norm in our future, but for now, sticking with actual walk-throughs that include the ability to touch, smell and feel the space we may commit to calling home remains preferable. It’s hard to imagine that the place we’ll raise our families, cry our tears, rejoice over our triumphs and lick our wounds could somehow be unemotionally purchased over the internet like we might order a new set of towels for the bathroom – which, by the way, unless you are truly in the room can be hard to judge if it “fits” just like such a personal space ought to fit.
Such a sales experience may indeed become part of the future of real estate, but for now, people in the Colorado front range area physically visited several of the 8438 homes available for sale in July, and 7163 of them closed on a new purchase. There were no shipping and handling charges added to the average sale price of $510,370, and delivery – ahem – Days on Market for July averaged 28.
A large number of people are deciding a purchase makes sense for them, but not everyone who wants to own a home is finding it as simple as a few clicks on a computer screen to do so.
Especially in the first time home buyer sector, they are discovering that those homes that would normally hit the market as “starter homes” instead are becoming the ideal to their current owners via renovations.
There is one main reason for that, and its name is low inventory. According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, home improvement spending is up – 50% over what it was in 2010. Homeowners are finding they would rather remodel an existing home than move. Great news for contractors and big-box home improvement stores, but leaves far fewer than normal homes for sale to eager buyers, which is causing fierce competition in this marketplace. As home price gains begin a slowdown, renovating rather than selling to a move-up house will likely mean an extra season or two – or more - of tight inventory dominating real estate market news. Even with sales of previously owned single-family homes making a slight uptick across the Front Range, almost 2.5% since May, improved affordability conditions continue to drive new hopeful buyers into the market.
On the good news front, the moderate home price appreciations and attractive mortgage rates are driving more home builders to pay a lot more attention to this underserved, entry-level portion of the housing market. That may ease the constrictions imposed by the existing home sales market, and allow first-time buyers a wider range of choice and ability to move from renter to owner, as they work with an experienced REALTOR® from RE/MAX Alliance to help make their dream come true!