A lot of people here and on Ben’s blog have been complaining about the phrase “buyer’s market.” I have to respectfully disagree; in economics-speak “buyer’s market” is really a perfect description of what we are seeing.

From AmosWEB, an online economics encyclopedia:

“A disequilibrium condition in a competitive market that has a surplus or excess supply. Because the quantity supplied is greater than the quantity demanded, buyers have the “upper hand” when negotiating. A market surplus also goes by the more common term of buyers’ market. The alternative to a buyers’ market is a sellers’ market, which has a shortage or excess demand. A buyers’ market exists because the quantity supplied by the sellers exceeds the quantity demanded by the buyers… at a given market price. In this situation, sellers are seeking to sell more of the good than buyers are willing to buy, hence buyers can pick and choose the goods purchased from the sellers. Sellers are lucky to find someone willing and able to purchase their good.”

Sure sounds familiar to me…. Note that buyer’s market DOES NOT mean good time to buy, nor seller’s market mean good time to sell.