With only 59 homes on the market you can imagine the tough competition out there to get an offer accepted. The trifling inventory has brought tough completion for buyers, causing them to adjust their offer strategy. Offers are routinely sent with a buyers highest and best intentions rather than historically conservative lower than list price offer amounts. I’ve even seen buyers submit personal photos and letters along with offers to help get a sellers acceptance.

Our real estate market closed out the year with a 19 percent decrease in new listings. 2011 presented 13,172 new listings while only 10,637 for 2012. With no possible potential of a shadow inventory to help ease the strain, 2013 is predicted to remain consistent with last year’s figures.

For those of you that have been looking to purchase a home I’d like to encourage you to keep trying. If you’ve been looking for longer than 3 months, don’t be too discouraged. Since we are experiencing a once in a generation opportunity to buy or sell homes it’s going to take a little extra effort to get an offer accepted. Writing offers today is not how they were written just a few short years ago. But with the help of your trusted Realtor it won’t be long before you’ll be one step closer to homeownership.

Sheri Aguilar is the president of the Lodi Association of Realtors and can be reached at Sheri@YourLocalAOR.com