The latest Redfin Real-Time Seller Survey found that home sellers, despite greater confidence in housing, are still holding off on listing their homes.

By Peter Ricci

Home sellers, though increasingly confident with the real estate market, are continuing to hang tight and wait for further improvements to the real estate market before listing their properties, according to the latest Real-Time Seller Survey from Redfin.

Twenty-two percent of home sellers, Redfin found in the Real-Time Seller Survey, are confident with where the housing market is headed, up from just 15 percent three months ago; however, home sellers remain tepid about entering the housing market, and Redfin expects housing inventory to increase only modestly in the coming months.

Real-Time Seller Survey – Tepid Sellers Holding Back

The housing market, Redfin noted, has been growing more and more into a seller’s market, what with rising prices and falling housing inventory; but still, as the Real-Time Seller Survey demonstrated, those market conditions have not yet translated to more initiative from home sellers:

• Just over 34 percent of home sellers indicated in the Real-Time Seller Survey that missing out on future price gains was a major concern of theirs, up from 30.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
• However, 49 percent of sellers did say they were planning to sell, up from 45 percent in the fourth quarter.
• Home sellers’ relationship to the rental market was perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Real-Time Seller Survey. Twenty-one percent of home sellers who are not planning to sell are currently renting out their home, and even of those planning to sell, 47 percent said they would consider renting instead of selling, which is up from 43 percent in the fourth quarter.
• Finally, 81 percent of sellers believe that home prices will rise in their area in the next 12 months, a six percentage point increase from the fourth quarter.

Where Have the Sellers Gone?

Redfin’s conclusions from the Real-Time Seller Survey were logical ones – in the end, market conditions will simply have to improve further to entice more home sellers to list their homes. And there are signs that such developments are right around the corner, as Redfin’s Tim Ellis wrote.

“Thankfully, all of the signals that began turning positive in the fourth quarter moved even more strongly in that direction this quarter,” Ellis wrote in the Real-Time Home Seller Survey. “As sellers continue to gain more certainty in the market, the prospects for improved inventory will only get better.”

Emilio Palomo, an agent with Riteway Properties in Miami Beach, said that his office has actually seen “quite a few listings” come onto the market since the start of the New Year, though he doesn’t expect housing inventory to really take off in 2013. “You’re not going to see much,” he said.

Regarding home sellers who opt to wait for higher home prices, though, Palomo has an excellent strategy – he reminds his clients that even if they receive more money for their property, they themselves will be paying more for their own new residence, unless they are downsizing.

“I tell them, ‘You’ll be paying more as well!'” he said.