Table of Contents

• The Shift Nobody Saw Coming

• What the Local Numbers Are Showing

• What I Keep Seeingg in the Field

• My Read on Where This Is Heading

The Shift Nobody Saw Coming

Right now in Shasta County, that shift shows up in every showing and every negotiation. Buyers are active. They are out there looking. But they are not competing for homes. They are comparing them, carefully, on a timeline that works for them and nobody else. That is what this market has become, and sellers who have not figured that out yet are learning it the expensive way.

The 30-year fixed rate sits at 6.58% today. It has barely moved in nearly a year. Buyers who spent the past two years waiting for rates to fall have mostly stopped waiting. The Fed held rates unchanged at its last meeting and signaled no urgency to cut. That rate on the chart below is not a surprise anymore. It is the baseline buyers have built their decisions around.

What the Local Numbers Are Showing

In Redding, there are 600 active listings right now. That number still sits about 17% below where inventory was in May 2019. Supply has not flooded back. Local values are down about 0.9% year over year and sit 4.5% below the 2022 peak. Step back further and the picture changes: up 8.5% over five years, up 34% over seven years. Most of the pandemic appreciation held. What did not hold is the urgency that defined buyer behavior during those years.

The map below puts Redding in national context. Look at the red markets — Austin is down 5.7%, Cape Coral down 6.1%, Punta Gorda down 7.9%. Those markets surged on speculation and relocation demand during the pandemic and are now correcting hard. Redding is down 0.9%. We did not spike on speculation. We are not correcting on it either.

What I Keep Seeingg in the Field

Today's buyers compare where 2021 buyers competed. They view more homes before deciding. They negotiate harder and walk away more often. They leave a listing that is not priced right without writing an offer, without asking for a counter, sometimes without asking a question at all. They do not feel pressure to act, and they know the market is not going to punish them for taking their time. That shift, from urgency to patience, is the single biggest change in this market over the past three years.

I see it in the field every week. A buyer walks through a home that checks every box, expresses genuine interest, and then goes quiet. Not because something was wrong with the property. Because there are four other properties they also liked, and none of them are going anywhere. The need to decide right now is gone. Buyers have time and they are using every bit of it.

My Read on Where This Is Heading

What I have noticed more recently is that sellers are starting to catch up to this reality. For much of the past year, many sellers came in with 2021 instincts still intact. They priced high, left room to negotiate, and waited to see what the market would do. What the market did was send buyers elsewhere without so much as a phone call. Now, more sellers are asking the right question first: what have comparable homes actually sold for in the last 90 days? That is a different starting point, and it leads to a different outcome.

My read: this market is not broken. It is just different. The mechanics are slower. Buyers are more deliberate. The cost of mispricing is higher, because overpriced listings do not draw low offers to work from. They draw silence. And every week that passes without an offer costs more than any negotiation would have.

The sellers closing deals right now priced honestly from day one and let the market confirm it. That discipline has not changed. What has changed is how quickly the market punishes the ones who skip it.

If you have been thinking about making a move before summer winds down, let's have a conversation first. I can put together a current number for your home based on what has actually sold in your neighborhood and walk you through what this market will and will not support right now. No obligation. Just an honest look before you decide anything.

Reply to this email and I will reach out to set something up.