IndyStar sat down with Litten, who has 50 years of real estate experience, to talk about what homebuyers and sellers can expect of the housing market in the year ahead.Question: How would you characterize the market during the first month of 2022?The market that we experienced in January was a continuation from last year. Obviously, last year finished very strong.
Now, because the Federal Reserve has been rattling their sabers that they're going to be raising rates, I think the mortgage market has pre-priced these interest rate hikes in already. The other thing that we’ve seen is that when we do get a home on the market, it’s not uncommon to have 10, 15, 20 showings on it immediately. And within a day, multiple offers on it with people paying more than the seller is asking.I can remember five years ago, what we’re experiencing was a common occurrence in the San Francisco, California, market. I thought, 'We’ll never see that happen here in Indiana.
That's the $64,000 question, because they never know what they're up against. And the thing that I would encourage them to do is to not lose faith in their ability to buy a home. Sometimes they are going to have to make offers on four or five homes over a period of time to eventually get one but they just need to hang in there and keep doing it.