The following update and discussion has been provided by Renee Kunz, office manager at Intero Real Estate in Hollister. 

In years past, most homeowners moved every five to seven years. However, recently I found a study from the National Association of Realtors.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) keeps historical data on many aspects of homeownership. One of the data points that has changed dramatically is the median tenure of a family in a home. As the graph below shows, for over twenty years (1985-2008), the median tenure averaged exactly six years. However, since 2008, that average is almost nine years – an increase of almost 50%. 

Why is this happening? It could be during the economic craziness when prices dropped, there was no equity so they could not sell their homes. This in combination with economic uncertainty is in my opinion a solid assumption. Now that we know why, how does this affect the market? As we all know, the market is hyper local. Meaning our market is different than other Counties and other States.

Homeowners in our Community have equity again. They can move to a bigger home, they can sell and relocate, they have options! However, we have limited inventory so this is not happening! Hence, again proof of the accuracy of the above graphs.