Real Estate

Bizarre Incident Illustrates Tight Birmingham Housing Market

Man's desperate tactic showed the level of competition for homes in Birmingham (and it also earned him a night in jail).

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BIRMINGHAM, MI – How competitive is the Birmingham housing market?

So competitive that a prospective buyer at an open house “barricaded himself in the home and wouldn’t open the door until he was told the seller actually looked at his offer,” Dan Elsea, Real Estate One’s brokerage president, said a real estate forecast breakfast sponsored by the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber Tuesday.

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The guy spent the night in jail, Elsea said, and his offer for the house was turned down, but the anecdote illustrates the health of the housing market in Oakland County, The Birmingham Eccentric reports.

Elsea and Eric Larson, of the Larson Realty Group, both said homes in $250,000 to $500,000 price range don’t remain on the market in Oakland County for much longer than a month.

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Homes priced below $250,000 sell even more quickly because the inventory of starter homes is down, they said.

However, sales of luxury homes at $1 million or more are slowing.

Image credit: This home in Birmingham is priced at $300,000. If other sales are an indication, it won’t be on the market for long. Photo via Zillow.

» Read more about the real estate forecast breakfast on hometownlife.com.

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