Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
..Most sellers are unwilling to acknowledge that their house is worth far less than they think or, in some cases, than they paid for it. It's painful, no doubt about it.
Ourdreamhouse's post in my opinion hit the nail on the head. We priced our house aggressively and it sold in 3 days with multiple offers and we got about 2% above asking price. Many people criticized us for "low balling" the price, but we felt we knew what it would sell for and what we expected to get for it and we were right. While looking at houses I noticed a few things... Houses that seem to be priced realistically sold very fast, within days. Other houses are sitting on the market and sitting and sitting. There are buyers as evidenced by the houses selling, it all comes down to price in the end. A few years ago everyone was satisfied with realizing ~4-5%/year appreciation and they were happy. Now if your house doesn't appreciate ~20%/year then something is wrong, the market's crashing etc etc. In a hot market that may fly, but it's a buyers market and if you want top dollar, your house has to be competitive. It either has to offer more for the price, or less price. True for many people its painful, but it doesn't change reality.
Ourdreamhouse: You are among the 0.01% of people who actually know what they are talking about :-)
To the OP: Real estate prices are cyclical: they go up, then they go down for years, stay flat for a while, and then they start going up again. But these cycles are long: they take many years to resolve.
You can't sell now because you have your minds set on prices that were prevalent in 2005/early 2006. Demand for housing has dropped, and the only way you can sell your house now is by reducing the price to what the market can bear now. Forget 2005 prices, we won't see them again until the next decade (i.e, after 2010 has passed).
House doesn't sell? It's overpriced for today's market. It may be cheaper than in 2005, but that doesn't matter any more. We are in late 2007, and the market-clearing prices today are much, much lower.
The solution for your problem: either drop the price considerably (tiny 5K-10K reductions are useless), or simply take your house off the market and wait for 5-7 years. Stop deluding yourself.
For daily doses of realism I suggest reading these intelligent websites:
had the house on the market now for 8 months had a lot of lookers no takers lowered the price 10000 still no luck was hoping to be in n.c by winter but looks like we'll be here in mass. for another winter is the market slow in nc too
Ginger,
I feel for you. Really do. We are going into six months now. Our problem has been finding a buyer who can obtain a mortgage. It is really tough when you have you heart set on getting out. We had hoped to be in NC by Sept the latest. Missed that date all right.
We have dealt with a realtor in NC for the past year and all indications from her have been that sales are way down and slow to happen. They have had a number of realtors temporarily move to other jobs until this crazy market hopefully settles.
I know you aren't looking towards another winter in Mass. Same here in NJ. In fact I got rid of my snow blower because we thought spending winters in snow were OVER. At least the guy I gave the blower to said he will come down and move the snow for us.
We have dropped our price by $25,000.00 and that is REAL close the bottom in order for us to be able to afford to move.
Just settle down and have patience.
It will happen
Dennis and Judy
Woodlynne NJ
the thought of snow and shoveling and the cold not to mention i just paid almost $300.for 100 gallons of oil its going to be a long wintercan't really go any lower on the price of the house my agent tells me its priced right its just a real slow market he seems to think maybe next spring things maybe a bit better
I'm sorry I can't recall who it was, but someone posted this week that realtors are trained to sell what is listed in their own office first. We have listed with a very small Century 21 office in San Diego and have noticed that we get realtors from many different companies around town but not many from the largest companies, including those realtors we originally interviewed but did not hire--there were three of them, and not one of those three has shown our house in nine months. Why not??
Bill says, "Hey, if a realtor has a buyer, he won't pass up the chance to make a sale regardless of which office he works for or who the listing agent is." Jan says, "Of course, but I keep hearing that they'll show that buyer every one of their own listings first and not our house unless the buyer specifically asks to see it." Our own realtor says, "The practice of showing a client only your own listings is unethical, but I won't say it isn't done. I couldn't do that because it would be unfair to my client. But it's done."
I gather that it's done a lot! So... if your house hasn't sold in, say, a year, should you list with a larger office even though you're happy with your small-office realtor?
Finally, do realtors tend to "network," showing clients homes listed by their realtor colleagues and avoiding realtors who are new in town just because they don't know them? Can being an experienced realtor who's new in town be detrimental to the health of the first client in that new town, assuming the realtor attends weekly realtor meetings and caravans, holds open houses, follows up on every showing, etc.?
Can anyone shed any light, please? Though we have been very happy with our small-office realtor-friend, we've been wondering about these issues all year....
Regarding interest rates going down? Oh boy, that is for the Fed and stock market, NOT for adjustable mortgage holders benefit. When the Fed lowers the rates, mortgage rates are effected inversely i.e. they go UP. Insiders benefit and we are TOLD it's good for us...but those of us hanging out here...nope. Our adjustables actually go up.
Hello fellow San Diegan. I just bought in NC...but did not even TRY to sell into this SD market. What is reasonable? A good, seasoned realtor..10 years experience will know the real price. New realtors are still cutting their teeth (no offense meant, I want someone who has experienced the whole RE cycle). I would not be happy with someone who couldn't sell my house quickly. They are NOT pricing you right. They may be very nice. But just too new in the field? pm if you'd like name of "well seasoned" realtor. Good Luck!
Hello fellow San Diegan. I just bought in NC...but did not even TRY to sell into this SD market. What is reasonable? A good, seasoned realtor..10 years experience will know the real price. New realtors are still cutting their teeth (no offense meant, I want someone who has experienced the whole RE cycle). I would not be happy with someone who couldn't sell my house quickly. They are NOT pricing you right. They may be very nice. But just too new in the field? pm if you'd like name of "well seasoned" realtor. Good Luck!
Thank you for your post and for your good wishes. You seem to understand the San Diego market and the importance of having a realtor with lots of experience. But our realtor already has 10 years' experience as a realtor and decades more than that as a multiple homeowner, buying and selling all those years, and now works intimately with a broker of more than 30 years' experience in our zip code. So we're not dealing with "new realtors still cutting their teeth."
In our humble opinion, it's not so simple as, "If it's not selling, it's not priced right." There are many factors that play into the current market and many factors that determine both the price and saleability of our unique house....
Thanks! Hope I didn't sound high and haughty--I actually felt sad as I wrote to think how many people would have bought our house already if we didn't have 40 "unique" steps from street to upper story. For them, price wasn't the problem....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
had the house on the market now for 8 months had a lot of lookers no takers lowered the price 10000 still no luck was hoping to be in n.c by winter but looks like we'll be here in mass. for another winter
i just paid almost $300.for 100 gallons of oil 
its going to be a long winter
