IS CURRENT PRICING, CORRECT PRICING?

07.17.08

The ever changing real estate market has not been kind to many sellers over the past several months and weeks. Inventory has climbed, sales have stagnated, in general, and buyers - when they show up - are coming in with offers (sometimes) well below the asking prices.

What gives with current Listing Prices? Are they too high? Are they coming down? Or are they holding steady? And, are the newest listings correctly priced for the current market?

All three are difficult to gauge, accurately.

For listings on the market for over 6 months, if there have been no intermediate reductions, they could well be too high. For those between 3-6 months "old", it is probably questionable, either way. For listings just coming on the market, both appropriate and inappropriate pricings seem to be present. In some cases, owners are overriding broker advice on this issue, although that may be happening less frequently. As an example, a new listing at $4,500,000 has absolutely no business being priced at that level, in my opinion.

Buyers currently have a large selection of homes to choose from and many "similarly featured" properties are quite varied in their pricing. "Must sell" notices are showing up for some listings; "bring offers" for others, and all give rise to increasing SELLER desires, or needs, to sell. All of the above adds further confusion to the pricing issue. This gives (flexible) buyers the ability to figure out where the best values are, and target the best apparent value for a purchase.

©2008 R. Leech features.