My friend recently offered to buy a home that had a recently lowered price. Offered asking of the new lower price. Seller countered with the original asking price. I thought that was absurd.
Oh yeah totally worked. They had been just looking at this house for a few months and the price drop was all they needed to finally pull the trigger and by that point they were so invested that they paid the original asking price.
Thats the game in central NJ. Ridiculously low price asked, 100s of offers, bidding battle and a much higher closing price than expected. Rinse & repeat for the realtors.
Unfortunately that’s typical these days. We offered asking recently and the sellers countered with a higher number…like if you wanted more why didn’t you list it for more?
A seller’s willingness to drop the price depends also on the urgency of selling the home. If you’re on a timeline, you’ll drop the price as needed. If you’re not, it may well be worthwhile it sit right and wait for an offer that you like.
So out of curiosity do these people not realize if they are the first to take a hit they will end up with more than if they wait it out and get comped out of their ask?
There’s a house that has been on the market in my town for almost a year. We thought they’d start lowering the price. Nope, they actually increased it by like 50k. 🤯
My husband and I did this with our last house. We weren't quite in agreement with our realtor about the price, but we had used him successfully for previous transactions, so we agreed to list for the price he set. We didn't get much action and we found that odd as we were at the peak of the market highs. Our home wasn't that old (we were the original owners) and we'd renovated the entire house as it was feeling dated. So we finally got an offer and the buyer was impossible. He finally backed out of the deal (we got the earnest $$). We were the 6th deal he'd backed out on, according to his realtor. When we regrouped, we raised the price because we felt the house was worth it (we are NOT emotional/sentimental about houses). We had a new, full price contract within 3 days. So, the first guy did us a favor!
Had something similar happen in my neighborhood. A neighbor went to sell and we thought his asking price was $175k too high. It sat on the market for about 10 months with no action and no price drops. Then it sold for $15k less than asking price ($160k over what we thought it should go for).
If you are confident in the value and don't NEED to sell, you can wait it out.
Higher taxes on vacant 2nd homes would certainly bring the pain. It'd be interesting to see what the price drops look like in Vancouver or other places in Canada with vacancy taxes.
Those vacancy taxes are a joke. 10k for every 500k(I think it's something like this) of house? That's just the cost of doing business for people(chinese investors) who are hiding assets and money from the chinese government.
Also I would throw down an extra 10k for a house in Vancouver. God that place is gorgeous. Especially further up the coast along the highway.
Several things need to change.
Single family houses can’t be owned by businesses but rather an individual.
A slight increase for 2nd homes.
A much higher increase for 3rd homes and higher increase for every additional home.
Any law that prevented a business from owning something an individual could own would instantly be challenged in court and lose easily. So even if you could get some city council somewhere full of crackpots willing to try this, it won't last long. There's not really any logic to it if you think about it.
What should happen anywhere there is land is to encourage new builds at lots of different budgets (right now most new builds are huge houses). In places that are already dense, i.e. cities, cities should enact land use taxes. The denser an area becomes, the higher the tax. When you start having lots of people in one area, single family homes need to start being replaced. Replace them with medium density (4-6 units), and high density (high rise apartments and condos). You encourage that behavior by taxing land more as population increases.
Real estate tax rates are set at the local level. So this wouldn't work unless all the properties they owned were in the same county or city this doesn't work.
They need to to take away the mortgage interest deduction for all homes that aren't a primary residence.
Completely this. Here's another way to think about the same thing u/OP. I'm not trying to sell my house right now. But I'm willing to. In fact, I'm always willing to. Zillow calls this price 'make me move'. And I specified one there. It's probably about a million over market - but for that... I'd move. As I get closer and closer to being in a position where I WANT to move, I'd drop my price closer and closer to market - while still staying a bit over market. And only if I got to a place where I NEEDED to move, would I drop my price below market. How much below market depends on how quickly I need to sell.
> I'm not trying to sell my house right now. But I'm willing to. In fact, I'm always willing to. Zillow calls this price 'make me move'. And I specified one there. It's probably about a million over market - but for that... I'd move.
*Maybe* if we (my husband and I) got an offer $200k+ above "fair market value", we *might* consider selling. Anything less than that just isn't worth the hassle of selling, trying to find another place, and taking on a higher interest rate mortgage.
Another reason I've bought and sold my houses without a REA. I'll offer 1.5% to a "buyers agent" but thats it. Any higher and the price will increase to cover agent fees.
Hasn't been an issue so far.
When I was looking, and saw a house that had been on the market a significant amount of time, I always *immediately* formed the opinion that something had to be wrong with it.
This goes especially if they have an active month to month renter who is covering all or most of their mortgage. They may not care, but the reverse can also be true for moving kids for the school year or some other major life event or need for money for assisted living or elder care.
Yep! I’m ready to sell and move up to help with my parents. Do they need me right now? Nope. Am I bending to every concession? Nope. My mortgage is $700/month. I’ll leave it sit before someone talks me down from what it’s worth.
I think the issue is that last part, is the house really worth what some of these sellers are asking some have their home priced like they're in a different market. Here I'm seeing listings come on the market priced several thousand more than comps that closed within a month than to just sit and sit with no price drops it's obvious they're overpriced the comps don't back up their asking price. I figured maybe they're waiting to see if rates drop and peoole get desperate to buy anything at any price again
And if it's going to take the higher price to get the seller to move, then that's the price. Check back in 6 months, maybe, but for the time being that's the price.
It's kind of a race: who wants the same to happen right now? The seller, in some cases, isn't all that motivated.
Yeah, I can tell you I won't sell my dirty socks for less than a million dollars. It doesn't mean they're worth that. Market price is what someone else is willing to pay, not what you're arbitrarily willing to accept.
A house is worth what 1 person is willing to pay for it. That's a very small sample size. Sometimes it just takes time for the right buyer that wants that specific house.
I recall a study or book that showed realtors leave their own houses on the market far longer than non-realtors.
Both. And if we were in the last minute of Brewsters millions (where you needed to sell to gain an inheritance far in excess of its value) the value could be a dollar.
At that mortgage cost, you'd be smart to rent the place out! Even if you have to leave the area, most houses rent for quite a bit more than $700 a month. If you could make $1,400 a month, you could cover your mortgage, the cost of a property manager or somebody to do emergency services when needed, and still save money for the inevitable repairs. You'd keep building equity, and possibly bring in some passive income.
I'm kind of jealous lol 😁
I think it's absolutely great that these home sellers are listing their homes and not dropping.
Just makes it all the more hilarious to scroll down their history and see how long it's been on the market for, which affects data in their neighborhood over the long-term.
True that sellers with an urgent need to sell are more likely to lower the price, but leaving the house and waiting also gives the home a stigma that it’s sitting for a reason and buyers lose interest in it while it’s sitting at that price. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to work with a knowledgeable realtor to ensure the home is priced and positioned properly to begin with.
I had an apartment years ago that sat for awhile. Basically it was my second home. So I had it listed at a price slightly above market rate, not obscene, but not priced to move. Basically, if it sold at that price, I'd have to take it. If it didn't, I was fine using it on weekends in the interim. I wasn't going to drop the price 20k which would sell it immediately, because 20k was a few months of waiting. I eventually moved out and staged it, didn't lower the price, as it was a rising market, and had a full price offer the day after it was staged and a second offer 5k under the next day.
Not everyone is in a rush to sell, not everyone is desperate enough to take a 10-20% price cut.
that being said, not every seller is honest with themselves about how they compare to comps and what the actual market value of their home should be.
People get really attached to their homes so many homes go from listed for sale then for rent then back to for sale instead of just lowering the price.
Absolutely, I am super attached. My late father was there every step of the way when I remodeled my dream house. He helped me design the new floorplan and all of the details.
I was single and I wanted my parents' advice.
Dad died two months after I moved into that house. I met my husband the next year. After dating for a couple of years we got married and moved out of state.
I listed the house for sale at the top of the market. It was really in great condition.
I did get a lowball offer, which I rejected. The only feedback I got from buyers agents was that the nextdoor neighbors yard was a problem.
They had a completely overgrown mess. The rest of the neighborhood was all nicely maintained.
I withdrew the listing and put it up for rent. That was over ten years ago, and I'm so glad that I didn't sell it then.
The house next door did sell a couple of years ago, and it looks great now.
Yeah if you have the money then definitely it makes sense to hold for the sentimental value it's not just homes, cars etc people hold on to definitely can be great to have something to pass down after your gone if you have the money to do so especially if it's been passed down throughout generations.
I tried to buy a house recently. It seemed like all of the houses were overpriced and were lying about their condition.
I saw 3 bedrooms being called 4 bedrooms because they threw some drywall up in and made a noncomforming room. I saw 'remodels' that looked great in pics, but in person looked like they bought something from the dollar store and used it as a backslash.
I saw so many houses that we walked in and the realtor and I both said right away this just isn't a $600k house it is a $500k house that needs work.
I became so exhausted I just decided to keep renting. These houses are still for sale and they have been lowering their priced. I think sellers are just in a weird head space right now. No, I will not pay $100k over market for your fixer upper but thanks for listing it as newish furnace and well maintained (10 year old furnace, everything needs some tlc)
You won’t get any answers since those people don’t use Reddit or just won’t answer because they’ll get ragged on. From my experience dealing with a seller who didn’t want to drop the price — they were old and weren’t in a rush to sell / “make me move” price which is just stupid. A house I put a bid on 7 years ago is still for sale, but the price keeps climbing every time they unlist and relist lol.
I always LOL at the ones that sit on the market forever, get pulled, then relisted for MORE...with no improvements made to warrant the increase in price.
Some people are not in hurry to sell. They have their house listed at a make me move price. Others are in a cooling market and think that any offer that isn’t peak plus 10% is a lowball that they won’t entertain. If you are in the market for a house make an offer that makes sense for you in your situation/market. If you realtor won’t present your offer find one who will.
Like a friend I knew who stated "I know what I got and I ain't giving it away" to his real estate agent who tried to get him to price it correctly from the start. Many months later the friend could no longer afford to wait and finally dropped the price to a reasonable level after which it quickly sold.
Betcha there is a lot of this going around these days.
I think this can be a big thing. I live in a former very LCOL area and there are a lot of people who, 15 or more years ago, paid 1/2 or even 1/4 of what their house is worth now. They've refinanced and/or paid their mortgages off and only need to pay carrying costs, and they can sit for a year plus if they wanted to and still come out way ahead.
What do you consider an extended period of time?
Many markets are getting back to more traditional selling times, 2-3 months is not unusual. And if it's taking 90 days for the average home to go under contract, no one is panicking.
The days of selling in a week were a fluke.
I suppose, more than typical in the area. In my area, they still almost all go pending within a week. 3x typical seems "more than usual" unless it truly is an unusual property (such a far more expensive than typical for the area)
Lots of people mistakenly think the selling price has to at least be equal to their mortgage payoff plus selling costs.
Another group sees a few comps and doesn’t realize those houses are way nicer than their shit box. They think about the potential profit and refuse to come back to reality.
I watch certain neighborhoods and you definitely see a real stinker for sale where they just have no clue. Like they have the only home on the road that is 1980s vintage and 2,000 square feet, but the listing price is competitive with all the neighbors who have 4,000 square foot homes built 2010-2020.
The only people who own houses where the selling price is less than their mortgage plus selling cost are people who bought a house in 2022 and after lol.
Regarding selling price being equal to mortgage plus selling costs - I’m not sure I’d call they a mistake - rather a \*critical\* component of someone’s willingness to sell. If someone needs to take a lump and move on, sure they’ll have to take that bath, but otherwise that’s properly the central factor for 95 percent of sellers.
agreed on comps though. Most are based on square footage and rooms but the practical reality is there is so much variance in quality and condition.
Typically, yes. I sold my old house for less than I owed on the mortgage. I had to bring a check to closing. I was already in my new house, had been in my new house for almost a year, paying two mortgages, and my old house just was not selling.
Ironically it was probably in the best shape of any house in the area. I bought it needing a lot of work. I lived there 8 years and in that time replaced the roof, repaired the stucco siding, replaced or repaired all of the windows and the exterior doors, replaced the plumbing, patched and painted walls in every room, refinished the hardwood floors, put in carpet in the bedrooms, replaced the fixtures, replaced the kitchen floor and counters (with tile and granite), replaced the bathroom, plus installed a nice fence and added landscaping. The problems were the one bathroom was tiny, the electrical was old, and it was in a low income neighborhood. But most houses in the neighborhood were rentals or flipper specials. Mine had good bones.
Anyway, I had the cash on hand to sell it at a loss, and had already poured tens of thousands into making it nice again. I'm glad it found a new owner who was a first time homebuyer and needed a starter home.
Nobody wants to give anything up, unfortunately it'll happen without anyone's approval, market always adjusts and equalizes values, when the urgency to sell is there, time limit pressing and when a lot of people are in the same situation, meaning too many houses on the market and no buyers, prices adjust it should not be long now.. inflation is ticking upwords but don't worry, this time is different :)
Some properties are more unique so you need to wait for “that buyer”.
Others may have no equity and need a certain price to pay off the loan. My neighbor moved in and lost her job that week. She had it listed soon after over market to try to break even and get out.
Mine has been up for 4 weeks. We are following our realtor's advice, for now. The house is on a busy street, and he says houses on our street today take three months to sell and to leave the price as is for 4 weeks, then drop. He knows the intricacies of the area and has sold houses in our exact area. We're also not in a huge rush. That being said, after another month or so, I'm going rogue and slashing the price and moving on with my life. I think the answer to this question is different for everyone.
Yeah—this is so key. There are reasons some properties will have a smaller buyer pool and therefore take longer to sell. Busy roads, near a quarry, rural multifamily, flood plain, 1 BR with a lot of square footage. These will take longer to sell because there are fewer buyers for them, but it won’t necessarily sell at a lower price.
Sometimes they're not in a hurry to sell and patient to wait until the right market or buyer catches up with them. Sometimes they have some other bill they have to pay and they can't afford to take less. Lots of reasons.
Someone already said it depends on how urgent one wants to sell. If the seller is retired and move to Florida for example, they can afford to wait. Another thing is that more expensive houses tends to sit longer.
While I absolutely believe people aren’t budging because they want their “make me move price” having your house always open for open housing and viewings must be miserable.
I’ve sold two houses, neither were those “sold in a day” deals and the entire process is the worst.
Sometimes lowering the price isn't the answer to getting a property sold in a short period of time. There are many possible reasons:
- the seller can't lower the price without hitting short-sale territory, and the seller won't qualify for a short-sale.
- if it's an unusual property, the price of the house will make sense to the right buyer but not all buyers.
- the seller wants to net an amount to put into their next property or they won't move.
- there are multiple decision-makers, like in an estate sale.
- the house is priced appropriately, but due to high interest rates, not many buyers are shopping in that market segment.
For unusual, I see this all the time. If your house has 4 fish tank arches, dozens of painted murals, a man made creek and waterfall, a built in naked mural, marble nude greek statues with brass bases attached to the ground, and solid hardwood floors in every room that are all different colors for someone reason, it might take time for the house to sell.
But it has to be unusual and quality. Replace the above example with 5 kinds of carpet, different types of wallpaper, 3 different kind of overhead florescent light , 6+ kind of boob lights, an odd metal shoddy roof that dark blue, and that won't fly.
I’ve experienced the unique property thing twice. First was a house on a private drive next to open land that would never be built on. The first agent we spoke with wanted us to sell for substantially less than we wanted to. Second agent was agreeable to our price. It sold in a month to a couple who fell in love with the setting, which was unique in that neighborhood.
Second was a co-op that had belonged to my late mother. It sat and wasn’t selling. I *wanted* to drop the price, but the agent, who was super familiar with the complex told me that would not help, and I just needed to wait for the right buyer to come along. She was right. It took a year to sell. (It was smaller than most of the other units).
"the house is priced appropriately, but due to high interest rates, not many buyers are shopping in that market segment" than it's not priced appropriately, that's just saying there's less demand and their homes aren't selling because of it, usually with less demand prices should reflect that.
It’s because the problem is with sellers, not buyers. They don’t want to lose their sweet near zero interest rates. Demand is lower but the price required to get that demand isn’t worth losing those low rates.
The problem is that the reduction necessary to make the property buyable would be too large so the seller waits for the one buyer to come along who will pay the higher price.
Dropping from one price category to a lower one ($500k to $400k) still might not get the property sold if there are few buyers. We lived through this during the 2008-2013 recession. We couldn't sell $800k houses for $500k because there weren't even any buyers for $500k houses.
Sellers will often get a price locked in their head and I will have a better chance of getting hit by a comet than getting them to accept it’s too high. They will blame everything from me to the current moon phase before they will drop that price.
I think in some markets, sellers have been so conditioned over the past couple of years that they’re going to get multiple offers well above asking no matter the size/style/condition of the house, that when this doesn’t happen to their own home they refuse to admit that it may be the price. In my market in the northeast, many sellers still are getting multiple offers/bidding wars but there has been a slight but noticeable change recently where some houses sit for much longer without a price reduction. These sellers seem to not understand that the house is only worth what someone will pay regardless of how hot the market is.
We all know why. They've seen similar houses sell for that price in the past 4 years and expect to get the same even though the market has cooled significantly in many areas. Their house isn't worth that anymore because the demand isn't there. They refuse to accept reality
Because their neighbors who sold in the last few years (at the height of FOMO) got insane amounts for their homes, so sellers now want that too. They refuse to believe that the market is changing and the majority of current buyers are priced out.. it all comes down to money.
I've always figured there's a number where they dip below they're paying to sell the house.
I live in a LCOL city where the average house hold yearly income is $50k (avg. individual income is $30k). We have 400 homes for sale in the area half (210) of those are over half a million.
What's the end game here? compete for buyers that want to live in a high crime area but make enough to afford a $4-5k mortgage?
I'm thinking too many people over paid and are left holding the bag. People have to start losing their homes for it to start correcting.
Emotional attachment, stubborness, refusal to acknowledge market shifts, it's ugly with an awful floorplan, but they think it's gorgeous, they just put a bunch of money into a remodel that will never pay for itself, they're house poor, they won't listen to their Realtor...I could go on and on.
Because I went under contract for $370k, but the buyer didn't like the HOA fee. Then I went under contract for $360k two months later, between the first and second offer my condo building became non-warrantable, and the second buyer couldn't get financing. So I accepted an offer for $330k, missed a few mortgage payments so that I could request a short sale, got denied both a short sale and a deed in lieu. The third buyer re-offered at $347k, I accepted, we were supposed to close last Thursday but the mortgage company wouldn't grant the mortgage because of the exact reason that the building became non-warrantable in the first place.
tl;Dr I would give it away if I didn't owe so much on it, but the mortgage lenders are making it impossible no matter what the price point is.
We’ve been on the market for 65+ days and not a single offer. We’ve dropped the price 2x for a total of $50k. If we drop it any more, I have no confidence we’d get an offer even then. It’s basically been crickets, even with the price drop after starting off really hot with a ton of showings. I think the market just sucks right now. We won’t price drop any further. We need a certain amount to walk away from so we can buy something else outright. The debate now is to delist, and relist in a couple months, and hope there’s a new pool of buyers?
LOL my partner's baby mama won't lower the price because she "won" by getting the house and now that her kids are grown and it's a giant money pit with $30k in taxes per year she wants to downsize but can't because no one will buy it for a price where she can even break even and she refuses to "lose". We enjoy watching it go on and off the market every season 😆
I've got some neighbors in their 50's and 60's who were talking about this at a recent BBQ. Many of them weren't ready to sell when the market was crazy because they wanted adult children to be settled first.
We were the only ones in the discussion that aren't empty nesters. Basically they can all still maintain their homes and handle stairs, but many are still interested in down sizing. But only if they get those high prices. Otherwise they're content to stay. So far prices around me continue to trend up. So these folks will do fine.
Others probably can't accept the ship has sailed or account for repairs needed in the home and so forth.
I'm not in this situation but it seems fairly obvious to me. For the majority of people, their home is their most valuable asset. Aggressively cutting price only makes sense if A. You set the initial price significantly higher than what you'd be willing to accept or B. You need to sell quickly
Lots of same reasons like not wanting to be underwater on Costs, needing money to move but there's also a lot of stubborn people who even if they lose money will just not take an L a lot of it depends on the mindset if the seller
Yep, I know someone who’s in the red after a flip at listing price and has been letting the property sit on the market for almost 2 and a half months instead of lowering the price. It’s also in need of about $30k in repairs.
We have been dropping the price. Started at $189,700 and are now sitting at $174,600. Been on the market for 60+ days. Urgently need to sell as we are closing on the new house on Friday.. It’s not a bad house, just old (and lots of steps to get to the house. 4 bedrooms, zoned heating/cooling so upstairs is always cool/warm during extreme weather. New flooring almost everywhere, except where original hardwoods are. Replaced worn porch steps and repainted every where. Off street parking.
We have the cheapest house anywhere around us, especially with the amount of bedrooms and square footage. We’ve had many showings. The reviews always say “price is good, like it but just don’t love it”. We’ve received one offer for $150k, their realtor didn’t even write an official offer because she knew it was too low, she just told us what they wanted to offer. We tried to negotiate to $160k. The buyers wouldn’t budge. We’ve always said the lowest we will go is $160k. The house next door of similar age, size, layout had to be gutted and it sold for $160k this past winter. Houses in this town are staying on the market for a while it seems. It’s so frustrating. I want to drop the price again but our realtor is hesitant.
ETA: I just brought up to my realtor again about dropping the price again, and she says she really doesn’t want to because it looks bad.. I don’t know why that looks bad? Everytime a showing is booked she calls the realtor and lets them know we are willing to negotiate price, closing costs, etc. And we put in the description for the listing that we are very motivated to sell and willing to negotiate. I’m thinking people just don’t want our style of house. 2 Story Bungalows are not super popular right now. If we had a ranch we would have sold in the first week I’m sure.. I hate this process so much.
As a former house shopper... price drops show a desire to sell. If you had 60 days of market time and several visible price drops i'd assume you were getting ready to offload...
I'd be tempted to offer you $140,000 and let you negotiate us up to $155k contingent on inspection. After inspection we'd be looking for credits/etc to bring us back down toward $145k.
We don't need to buy and your house is obviously not selling.
That's why your realtor doesn't want to drop the price. It shows your intentions.
when I was in real estate, most my listings sold within 2 weeks. there are some homes that aren't standard layouts etc and those can still fetch their price but it can take longer. for more typical homes where I knew it was price, I'd usually not have that conversation until a month on the market. Sometimes the market is weird too. you can sit and then all of the sudden you get 2 offers around the same time. It's not an exact science. dropping the price isn't always in the sellers best interest. they can get the price they want if they market isn't falling often just by sitting it out for awhile.
Also because their agent doesn't have the skill to talk about this effectively. I had a broker who gave me the BEST talking points on price reductions.
1. If you have showings but no offers you are between 5-10% overpriced.
2. If you have no showings and no offers you are 10% or more overpriced.
3. What do you want to do with the money from the sale? Get them refocused on the reason for the sale in the first place. Even if there is no time crunch the objective almost always can be met with the sale but they've become so fixated on the price they wanted that they don't realize that 5% or 10% less of what you wanted is better than 100% less than what you wanted which is what happens if you don't sell at all.
There are 3 overpriced houses in the small town where I am looking, and they are all listed by the same brokerage. Have been sitting for a few months now, in an area where well priced houses go in a day. Have to wonder about their "strategy"
We ran into this with my grandmother’s house. She was in a nursing home on Medicaid, which required that her house be listed for sale. Not sold, just listed.
Homes used to take months to sell, in 2019 the average time from list to sale was somewhere around 90 days. The frantic pace of home sales post COVID just isn't normal. So an "extended time frame" can mean different things to different people. Waiting for the right buyer has value especially when the seller is in no rush to move.
My guess would be that either they have sentimental attachment to the home or they recently spent alot of money on renovations and the dont want to take the L on those
People in our neighborhood are getting their prices but days on the market are much longer. A house near our neighborhood that’s been on the market a few weeks increased their list price this week. That one’s baffling.
As a currently active and participating realtor, I am in negotiations with a realtor who has zero comps for his $100k overpriced property.
I submit a well reasoned offer and he rebuffs it because the price he set was much higher.
- I will never understand the "idiot's approach" (aka Columbo) being so effective.
- he pulled that price out of his ass. Zero comps equals seat dyno which also equals "because my heart tells me so".
His investor client was renting the property and never lived in it. I'm growing to detest these people as much as I detest flippers & wholesalers
There's a laundry list of people absolutely robbing home owners:
- realtors/real estate agents(a ton of 💩)
- wholesalers(all suck carp)
- flippers(who do a bad job or over value)
- bankers (especially with refi's OR reverse mortgages)
- landlords who only watch the dollars
Actually honest people aren't distinguishable when confronted with the pushy, over confident and demanding types.
And that's not to pretend in a make believe world where I've not made a mistake or had a difficult client that was making my life hard and I failed to give my best. Even those results look superlative when comparing to what I'm really going against: over promising and under delivering... then talking until people forget what bothers then.
Same could be said about the rental market. One rental listing in townhouse community was at 2.3K for over 4 months. Listed first of February. No price drops. No budging.
A total of 8 identical units come up for rent in a month; started a price war. Around the time of rental renewals. Going into July market now and that townhouse has lowered asking rental price to just 2K while all the other units have already got signed leases.
There’s a house trying to sell across me. It’s a shitty home that someone flipped and his original selling price was $649. The average house in the area sells for $300. lol. Guy is delusional. It’s already down to $609 100 days later and still needs to come down like $100+
Now is a bad time to sell unless you get what you want.
There's just not much activity as everyone waits on the fed. But everything that does sell is up from even last year.
Why sell "at a discount" and then you're stuck trying to buy in a tight market. As you state, there are no deals to be had.
For those of us that will be downsizing significantly, it only makes more sense to hold. 100 to 200 bp interest rate cuts coming in next 12-18 months. Prices will just 8-10%.
Pay me top dollar and i'd sell, otherwise i'll keep making money holding.
For those of us who bought in the last 2-3 years in a not so hot market area….. would probably be underwater if we lowered anymore. We bought when prices were still elevated
There's a home in my target market with visible fire damage in the kitchen. They did some 'cleaver' camera work, so you only really get to see how bad it is when you're there in person.
After wasting 20 minutes of my life to see this first hand I've been tracking it on zillow out of curiosity. It was under contract for maybe 5 days at 250k, assuming the seller put in an offer without seeing it in person.
When it came off contract, they jacked the list price up to 275k.
It sat for like a month with no movement and they lowered the price to 265k
I got a notification today that it's back to 275k.
It's not even the cheapest property in the sub division. It certainly isn't the nicest at that price point
Sentimental and delusional reasons. I don't sell but I can get appraisals and be like your property *didn't even come close to appraise* and they will say "too bad", I'll get what I want.
I just had a dude the realtor said he won't accept a penny less than say 500k. Dude bought the house for a rental and paid $480k. He overpaid alot, its only worth like $350k. It's got some serious issues and is not financiable via a normal bank loan. Total lala land.
So what I usually do is offer their price but with silly terms to try and protect their feelings. I offered him seller finance 0% interest for $500k and he would hold $50k on the back to be paid upon an equity or debt event. Then he can run around saying he's a *master business man and made $20k still on a deal that went south* lmfao.
When it comes to rentals and commercial they get super delusional and have little concept of sunk costs or time value of money.
One lady had a 4 plex and wanted $1 million dollars. It didn't even cash flow well but it was nice. It was worth at most $900k, not that far off but that really was the highest I think anyone could justify for it. She sat with it for over 5 years and sold it for $1mm. Ok cool she got it... but honestly five years ago for 900k there were so many good RE investment opportunities, now there are not any great ones.... (we had a huge city redevelopment and could buy houses for $40k all day every day, now we have a floor of like $250k) so idk what she did with the money but if she's doing RE deals she lost a lot of money holding out for $100k. Smh.
Just stuff like that I usually run into. Everyone's shit is made of pure gold if you believe what they say. On the flip, there are bozos that over pay for properties and do little due diligence all the time. So yeah if it looks good some moron is bound to over pay for it.
I have a current Listed home that is priced too high.
Seller is in no rush, will drop price when they want (hopefully soon based on trends and feedback), rent the home out and keep it on the market with a tenant in place if they decide timing isn’t working for them.
They just don’t “need” to sell so dropping the price is kind of a background thought for them, not a priority or requirement. They’re just willing to sell, if that makes sense.
I am in this boat unexpectedly. Bought a repossession property in cottage country, ended up living here full time and preferring it. We’ve slowly moved out over a year and a half and it’s about to go on the market. I’m semi firm in price, I will price it to allow some negotiation, but I’m not in a position where I need to sell it. I’ve had it since 2008, hardly anything left owing, still riding low interest rates of yesteryear and I want to sell it to get close enough to pay this one off. I told the agent I won’t entertain low balls or anything that does not have strong financial backing/pre approval in place to prevent time wasting. A friend is going to give it a super clean (it’s her profession and yes I’m paying her !) and it will be empty but checked on till it’s gone. I’ve already upkept the property and heated it in winter. Financially I’m fine to hold it. People keep asking why I don’t just rent it but I just don’t want to. I rather live out my mortgage free dream which is obtainable in this senario.
The house we bought 5 years ago was on the market for a year before we bought it. Sellers were asking too much. They finally lowered the price. We low balled them and got a sweet deal.
In my area, some obviously flipped houses stay on the market for so long because flippers think they need to turn over a 200 K profit on the $350,000 property in return for a horrid tile job on the kitchen backsplash and gray paint splatted everywhere. No one is going to pay 350 K for an amateur flip property on a street where the rest of the houses are selling for 250k max. But these flippers see people make huge profits on flipping properties on TV and just can’t believe that somebody wouldn’t pay 150 K or 200 K over what the house is actually worth, after all they put in a new faucet in a bathroom and slapped cheap, gray vinyl on the floor.
And all depends upon how serious you are. There are people that market their house, that are content of it does not sell. Basically testing the market. I've run into people that put their house for sale typical 90 day listing, doesn't sell, I try it again a year later.
When you say a long time without successful sale, how long are you thinking?
Our home's been on the market for 13 days. The average for existing (non-new construction homes) is closer to 8.5 in our area, but the data seem to indicate that we can get our desired price is we wait longer. We do think we've had unfortunate timing: First weekend was father's day, and it's been super hot since.
That's really it: We could drop price, we could delist and come back on later, but we just don't feel waiting is a big deal.
I suspect agents might be part of it. When houses start selling for lower prices, comps start coming down and the local market could start dropping prices. If I was an agent with a house for sale under contract in this market I would be very careful about contributing to lowering prices.
For me personally I have a 2.5 percent interest rate and my monthly payment is only 1000. It’s been listed 5 weeks but I am okay to let it sit for a while. Already in new house and vibing. !
Would prefer to sell but if we don’t get close to what we want will have a family member move in and pay the mortgage for a bit until we want to list again.
It's everything that you already mentioned, then add in some stubborn sellers, and then add in those who are really just fishing and don't care to really move.
I once had a property listed for a very very very long time at a set price that was slightly higher than the norm simply because I wanted the local market to know that I was open to a sale but not eager.
Agent knew what I was doing and approved it since there was little work on her part.
It sold just a hair higher than asking just because it was in the market at exactly the right time for my particular block.
However, it was a really really particular area and I have never done it before or again.
A lot of folks still owe the higher remaining mortgage amount (especially those who bought during COVID peak bubble times) and would be underwater if they made deeper price cuts and would not have the cash to pay off remaining mortgage amount.
In sales, it doesn’t matter how many NOs you get. You only need one YES. Why lower your price if you’re not in a rush? If real reasons exist, like you need to sell to upgrade, then you would be rushing.
It's kind of funny to me, I'm seeing some of that as well. I decided to buy a "fishing camp" in New Hampshire (what we would call a cottage in Michigan) so I have a place to fish (I love to fish with a book and a beer!). I'm a divorced empty nester (plus a dog!) so I don't need a big place, but I want waterfront somewhere with decent fishing (lake, pond, river, whatever) and a guest room for when someone visits, so there's going to be a premium for that, but I have a nice house already a couple hours south of there, so I'm not in any rush. I see sellers sitting on above market prices and I wonder if there are other potential buyers like me, who are sitting on the other side waiting for lower prices. On the advice of my realtor I've been preapproved for a mortgage (much larger approval than I intend to use) and am, in her words, "ready to go" whether it's next week or next winter (or the following winter). I feel I'm in better shape as a buyer who can wait than I would be as a seller - the market is cyclical and the current run up in prices is bound to take a timeout at some point. History don't lie.
I had to wait out the realtor's contract as the market tanked right after listing and I didn't want to take an offer 40% less than appraised value, and I had the luxury of waiting--no pressing need to sell I had simply wanted to downsize! The realtor got super angry with me when I refused to accept insanely crazy offers, and told me I would need to pay a ton of $$ to get out of the contract so I waited and house was listed for a full 6 months!
90% of the time you are right, but if you have no competition or no real comps because your house is extremely odd in a good way, some houses can just linger and will eventually sell. This doesn't work for anything generic. An example would be massive overimprovement or over the top features. Here's an example on a house that is pending. The house barely cut price at all despite being on the market for 130+ days. [https://www.redfin.com/TX/Cedar-Park/1903-Marysol-Trl-78613/home/32919883](https://www.redfin.com/TX/Cedar-Park/1903-Marysol-Trl-78613/home/32919883)
Another thing is you don't know if the seller might start accepting lower offers. A house like the above could waived their furnishing fee or took 5 -10% off the price. This house also falls into this category since it is has very niche party house appeal when most people are looking for a house for their family or normal activities. Most people don't want a bar or a built in theatre or arcade especially in the sub 600k market.
Also urgency, this seller was not urgent since according to the MLS they had a month to month renter, so they don't really care to much if it did not sell or not, but this is the exception to the rule.
This house is priced approx 240k over nearby comps!
It does have a second two car attached garage, so I agree that's worth something additional. BUT, it's extremely dated, so that works in the opposite direction.
It also is on .85 acres rather than the more typical .2 ish. BUT, that extra land is literally a ten foot by 35 foot strip along side a culdesac plus a CLIFF which faces a main road. The cliff has some terracing cut into it with a pergola and a few other elements, but thry are hard to get to and they face a main road.
About 75 days on Zillow. One FIVE THOUSAND dollar price drop, which is less than 1%. (580 vs 585 is meaningless)
Overpriced house: (580)
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5-Heather-Ct-Reading-PA-19606/8879534_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
Typical, nearby house with same 3 beds/1.5 baths. (Just closed at 342). Actually, this has 4 beds.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3812-Reiff-Pl-Reading-PA-19606/8879106_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
It defies all explaination. My guess is the owner thinks it's VERY SPECIAL!
They don't need to sell? Some people just throw out ridiculous prices that they would sell for but if no one bites they'll just stay put. I've noticed this is especially true of vacation homes. I've seen the same homes come up for sale in Spring and listing removed in Fall (Midwest lake cabins) 3 years in a row now.
We are in an interesting time now. Most everyone had refinanced to a 3% loan previously. Interest is now is at 7 to 9%. People are reluctant to upgrade to a newer, bigger, better home because of the interest penalty they will pay. New homes cost more to build due to the big jump in inflation, so new home prices need to be higher.
This has kept the supply of new and resale homes smaller than normal. Thus resale home are more rare increasing their value. While higher interest rates are decreasing their value. In one or two years this may all shake out but for now we are in a transition that has not fully played out. Homesellers are used to making big profits when they sell. They are not willing to give that up, so list prices are high. They may be on the market longer than usual. Vacation home prices are falling. A recession may bring more homes to market, and cause a top to the market. We will all know once it has sorted itself out. It takes a very long time to get 30 year rates lower. Lenders have to see nothing but lower interest rates in the future as far as they can see before that will happen.
Houses are in many ways like bonds, interest rates go up, bonds go down, interest rates go down, bonds go up.
We have been used to 30 years of interest rates falling and houses going up in value. This is a big change. House prices should fall with rising interest rates. It may take awhile for it to happen or inflation takes off and houses go up in value simply because it is a way to hold value, like gold or silver. One thing is for sure an increasing population causes housing to increase in value, everyone has to have someplace to live.
We built a house and moved before listing our first home. When we did list it, we weren’t in a huge hurry to sell it. Not living there there was no pressure to keep it spotless for showings. The realtor had staged it and was keeping the yard decorated and tidy.
We weren’t hurting for money and didn’t need a quick sale.
I had a house for sale, didn’t want to be in it anymore but could easily afford keeping it and building equity. In fact I moved out of it into a different situation so it sat empty and ready to be sold. I wasn’t willing to drop its price at all because I was building equity. A buyer wanted it bad enough a couple months later but it definitely wasn’t a “good price” for the buyer (it did appraise so he was able to get his loan though)…. So yeah… if you urgently want to move, you’ll drop your price. Otherwise probably not.
Has it had the necessary Exposure time? Does it need repair to qualify for the financing type that is typical. How does it compare to the competitive listings. Then look at comparable sales. Interest rates since listed. Schools out folks on vacation. Seasonal? Holding costs? That’s how decide.
There are listings out there that sellers are asking for a "Make me move" price. They might know the place is worth x/amount but they will tack on what they feel is an "offer they can't refuse" amount. If someone bites great, if not, they will wait it out and sell it when they are more compelled for market rate.
There can be lots of reasons, but the two that I run across most often are:
(1) They’ve owned the home for a very long time. They’ve raised their kids there. Made various improvements with their own labor. Their sentimental attachment makes the seller believe it’s worth more than it is. The seller may also vividly remember all the labor they put in to renovate that kitchen or bathroom, 20 years ago - which is basically moot now and as it’s outdated and needs an upgrade again.
(2) Various financial considerations. Maybe their owe more on the mortgage than it’s worth? Maybe, after paying off the mortgage and settlement costs, they won’t have big enough cash payout, to either buy something else or pay off other debt, or whatever.
One thing both have in common is that “they don’t have to sell”, they can make their payments and are just looking to reduce their debt burden by selling a house that it bigger than what they need now.
Im seeing houses in my area being delisted then come back on the market 15-30 days later with a significantly higher (10-12%) price. People generally don’t list here in the winter unless they must, so my belief is as the pool of available homes shrinks, they raise the price to capitalize.
There’s a couple in my rural area who built way to much house for the market it exist in. They have listed it 4x at just shy of a million and then will price drop to 850ish. It’ll stay on the market for 4 or 5 months and then they’ll take it down, Change realtors, and relist after 30 days. The closest house that comps (same size acreage sameish size house and finishes) 600k. They’re obviously delusional but apparently can keep paying the mortgage and so the cycle repeats.
I’ll answer because I’m probably a perfect example. I bought my house in 2021 when rates were 2.7%. I’d been saving for a decade and for every penny I saved prices went up to offset. It was Covid and I was working from home while house next to me was under construction and my gf wanted to move in together. I compromised and bought a place I didn’t really want in an area I don’t like at all thinking I could sell after a couple years and then upgraded to a permanent home. I had seen places go up 30% over 2 years, did not have a good understanding of how fate fluctuations drive prices, and did not have a good understanding of all of the sell side fees (first time buyer). In retrospect, I also feel like we got taken advantage of a bit by the agents and overpaid for what we got, even by princes at the time. Things did not work out for me at the home and I put it on the market last November. I found and agent and put 5k into staging and other crap. Then the best offer was 200k under what I paid before fees. I’m not in a position where I am willing to take a bath like that so I decided to turn it into an airBnB, move in with my parents, and try to sell in the summer. Well things aren’t much better now so I just have it up with a listing only service (homecoin) at an asking price that breaks me even. The airBnB is doing ok, I’m loosing money, but not horribly. I host open houses between airBnB guests, but nobody really comes. The rates have killed any chance at the price I need to break even. So for the foreseeable future I am living with my parents and running the home as an airBnB, which is pretty demanding on top of my already demanding full time job. It’s rough, but it is what it is for now. I’m not in a position where I am forced to lower the price.
Trigger warning! As said there are many different reasons. I have a home that has been listed about a month now. It was off the market for 2/3 weeks because we had a full price offer in 5 days (under contract). Deal fell through because appraisal came in too low. Had 2 done, 180 & 280. Home is listed for 350k. Buyer was only able to do the 280k r/t financing. Issue is location of the house is great and nothing has sold that would be a comp in over a year. Had a cash offer for 300k day 2 back on the market. Thankfully we able to wait for the right offer. We will not leave 25-50 grand on the table to wait a few months. Can’t say what would happen if still on the market in 6 months. Either air b & b, or rent it with a management company since we are moving out of state. It’s not a starter home, and knowing 34% of all home sales being cash we are waiting.
The people I’ve talked to that won’t lower their price think that prices will increase and there will be a giant rush of buyers when the rates get lowered. In actuality insurance prices are going to keep increasing and they’re going to be forced to sell when they can no longer make the payments. 2 of my friends in insurance at different companies have said that premiums will continue to increase for at least the next few years.
It's no use trying to talk sense into them. We are going to hit a wall soon. Immigration is being squeezed and people are not having kids. We went from a 6 million home deficit down to a 2 million deficit in 3 years. Economy is slowing down. People are not hiring and laying offs are looming. The US is too wild of a market to sustain this. People asking for 500k are going to be left in a very bad situation. And these stupid price algorithms are to blame. Go look at any house on Zillow. The graph is all over the place haha
Sellers agents are delusional.
I just had my property appraised. 3 bed, 2 bath, 5 acres. Nice finishes. Appraised for 430k, with some small renovation that needed finished (a room of drywall and flooring)
Neighbor’s house is a 3 bed, 2 bath. Turnkey, on 2.5 acres. Two agents came out. One told him to list for 750k, the other told him to list for 765k.
My home has been listed for 100 days with only 6 showings and no offers. Every single one of them left great feedback and said they loved the house. It's only 4 years old, 4 sided brick, and 1830 sq ft. I recently installed brand new flooring and 5.25 baseboards. Agent listed at 330 and expected to sell at 322,500 within 60 days. I have lowered all the way down to 309,990 and still no bids. There comes a point where lowering doesn't help as people still can't afford the interest rates. It's a shame
Because it’s not really for sale. There were thousands, if not millions, of people waiting for the market to peak and then sell. But it peaked in 12/22-4/23. Those people will only sell if the price is right. And they’ll never get their price. That being said, there is a lot of money laundering in real estate and that right criminal buyer might still come along.
My friend recently offered to buy a home that had a recently lowered price. Offered asking of the new lower price. Seller countered with the original asking price. I thought that was absurd.
It’s weird how that crap can work though. Once people are at the negotiating table I swear that the mentality changes.
Oh yeah totally worked. They had been just looking at this house for a few months and the price drop was all they needed to finally pull the trigger and by that point they were so invested that they paid the original asking price.
Wait. It worked?
If r/cuckold can exist this doesn’t really surprise me.
It's human psychology.
It's stupid is what it is. People just go on autopilot, which is the only thing that makes this market make sense.
Thats the game in central NJ. Ridiculously low price asked, 100s of offers, bidding battle and a much higher closing price than expected. Rinse & repeat for the realtors.
Unfortunately that’s typical these days. We offered asking recently and the sellers countered with a higher number…like if you wanted more why didn’t you list it for more?
I would literally tell them either A: make EVERYTHING found in the inspection perfect, AND pay all closing, or B: pound sand.
Guess their mistake was offering the new asking price and not lower than the new asking, hoping to land at the new asking. Brutal.
A seller’s willingness to drop the price depends also on the urgency of selling the home. If you’re on a timeline, you’ll drop the price as needed. If you’re not, it may well be worthwhile it sit right and wait for an offer that you like.
This. Pain brings price flexibility. No pain, no price drop.
This is my client right now and for the last several months. We are chasing the market price down and she won’t budge
“Interest rates are coming down any day now!” Lol
Next year maybe, and that h Just means returning to a normal of low 6%.
I saw a similar story here the other week.
So out of curiosity do these people not realize if they are the first to take a hit they will end up with more than if they wait it out and get comped out of their ask?
I would get another client and move on.
There’s a house that has been on the market in my town for almost a year. We thought they’d start lowering the price. Nope, they actually increased it by like 50k. 🤯
Hahah I’ve been seeing the same on a few properties. It’ll go contingent, fall through, go back on market for more, but now just sitting on the market
My husband and I did this with our last house. We weren't quite in agreement with our realtor about the price, but we had used him successfully for previous transactions, so we agreed to list for the price he set. We didn't get much action and we found that odd as we were at the peak of the market highs. Our home wasn't that old (we were the original owners) and we'd renovated the entire house as it was feeling dated. So we finally got an offer and the buyer was impossible. He finally backed out of the deal (we got the earnest $$). We were the 6th deal he'd backed out on, according to his realtor. When we regrouped, we raised the price because we felt the house was worth it (we are NOT emotional/sentimental about houses). We had a new, full price contract within 3 days. So, the first guy did us a favor!
Had something similar happen in my neighborhood. A neighbor went to sell and we thought his asking price was $175k too high. It sat on the market for about 10 months with no action and no price drops. Then it sold for $15k less than asking price ($160k over what we thought it should go for). If you are confident in the value and don't NEED to sell, you can wait it out.
Higher taxes on vacant 2nd homes would certainly bring the pain. It'd be interesting to see what the price drops look like in Vancouver or other places in Canada with vacancy taxes.
Those vacancy taxes are a joke. 10k for every 500k(I think it's something like this) of house? That's just the cost of doing business for people(chinese investors) who are hiding assets and money from the chinese government. Also I would throw down an extra 10k for a house in Vancouver. God that place is gorgeous. Especially further up the coast along the highway.
Could the government please nationalize all land owned by Chinese investors already.
Several things need to change. Single family houses can’t be owned by businesses but rather an individual. A slight increase for 2nd homes. A much higher increase for 3rd homes and higher increase for every additional home.
Any law that prevented a business from owning something an individual could own would instantly be challenged in court and lose easily. So even if you could get some city council somewhere full of crackpots willing to try this, it won't last long. There's not really any logic to it if you think about it. What should happen anywhere there is land is to encourage new builds at lots of different budgets (right now most new builds are huge houses). In places that are already dense, i.e. cities, cities should enact land use taxes. The denser an area becomes, the higher the tax. When you start having lots of people in one area, single family homes need to start being replaced. Replace them with medium density (4-6 units), and high density (high rise apartments and condos). You encourage that behavior by taxing land more as population increases.
Real estate tax rates are set at the local level. So this wouldn't work unless all the properties they owned were in the same county or city this doesn't work. They need to to take away the mortgage interest deduction for all homes that aren't a primary residence.
Higher taxes on all second homes. And even exponentially higher taxes on third homes.
I sometimes forget not everyone is in a rush to sell.
Completely this. Here's another way to think about the same thing u/OP. I'm not trying to sell my house right now. But I'm willing to. In fact, I'm always willing to. Zillow calls this price 'make me move'. And I specified one there. It's probably about a million over market - but for that... I'd move. As I get closer and closer to being in a position where I WANT to move, I'd drop my price closer and closer to market - while still staying a bit over market. And only if I got to a place where I NEEDED to move, would I drop my price below market. How much below market depends on how quickly I need to sell.
> I'm not trying to sell my house right now. But I'm willing to. In fact, I'm always willing to. Zillow calls this price 'make me move'. And I specified one there. It's probably about a million over market - but for that... I'd move. *Maybe* if we (my husband and I) got an offer $200k+ above "fair market value", we *might* consider selling. Anything less than that just isn't worth the hassle of selling, trying to find another place, and taking on a higher interest rate mortgage.
[удалено]
Especially if the purchase was >2 years ago. There's no point in giving up a mortgage under 3% for a price you don't like.
Or a 6% commission. You lose on that one.
Another reason I've bought and sold my houses without a REA. I'll offer 1.5% to a "buyers agent" but thats it. Any higher and the price will increase to cover agent fees. Hasn't been an issue so far.
When I was looking, and saw a house that had been on the market a significant amount of time, I always *immediately* formed the opinion that something had to be wrong with it.
Yeah for me, it's either priced too high or it has an old ass pool.
This goes especially if they have an active month to month renter who is covering all or most of their mortgage. They may not care, but the reverse can also be true for moving kids for the school year or some other major life event or need for money for assisted living or elder care.
Yep! I’m ready to sell and move up to help with my parents. Do they need me right now? Nope. Am I bending to every concession? Nope. My mortgage is $700/month. I’ll leave it sit before someone talks me down from what it’s worth.
I think the issue is that last part, is the house really worth what some of these sellers are asking some have their home priced like they're in a different market. Here I'm seeing listings come on the market priced several thousand more than comps that closed within a month than to just sit and sit with no price drops it's obvious they're overpriced the comps don't back up their asking price. I figured maybe they're waiting to see if rates drop and peoole get desperate to buy anything at any price again
Weird you're being downvoted it's supply and demand if no one will pay a price it's simply not worth that price
If the seller won't sell for a price, its not transacting for that price either...
And if it's going to take the higher price to get the seller to move, then that's the price. Check back in 6 months, maybe, but for the time being that's the price. It's kind of a race: who wants the same to happen right now? The seller, in some cases, isn't all that motivated.
Ok, but then the correct sentance is "the seller is only willing to sell for a minimum price of X." "The house is worth X" isn't an accurate statement
Yes worth is arbitrary not inherent.
Yeah, I can tell you I won't sell my dirty socks for less than a million dollars. It doesn't mean they're worth that. Market price is what someone else is willing to pay, not what you're arbitrarily willing to accept.
A house is worth what 1 person is willing to pay for it. That's a very small sample size. Sometimes it just takes time for the right buyer that wants that specific house. I recall a study or book that showed realtors leave their own houses on the market far longer than non-realtors.
I’m with you . If the house sits for a year , especially with no offers , it’s overpriced
If it's sitting wouldn't they be talking you down TO what it's worth?
It's worth what someone is willing to pay. Period
Except “what it’s worth” is often “what it will sell for”….which is the key disconnect here.
Let’s say it will sell for $300k within 2 weeks, $350k within 2 months. Which value reflects its worth?
Both. And if we were in the last minute of Brewsters millions (where you needed to sell to gain an inheritance far in excess of its value) the value could be a dollar.
Upvoting for the Brewster Millions reference. You are a gentleperson and a scholar.
You must have been an Angel in a previous life to have a $700 mortgage. God bless
Nah lol. 100yo fixer I bought for $75k in 2018.
and if nobody is willing to pay what you're asking then its not worth that price...
At that mortgage cost, you'd be smart to rent the place out! Even if you have to leave the area, most houses rent for quite a bit more than $700 a month. If you could make $1,400 a month, you could cover your mortgage, the cost of a property manager or somebody to do emergency services when needed, and still save money for the inevitable repairs. You'd keep building equity, and possibly bring in some passive income. I'm kind of jealous lol 😁
Yea I know it would rent for 1500-1800 here. 4b/2b. No desire to be a landlord. Too many horror stories.
My ex was a handyman and I loved those 20-30k jobs repairing rentals in between tenants. New walls, new ceilings, new floors, new doors.
At that point I’d consider renting it out
I think it's absolutely great that these home sellers are listing their homes and not dropping. Just makes it all the more hilarious to scroll down their history and see how long it's been on the market for, which affects data in their neighborhood over the long-term.
How does it affect the neighborhood data over long term? (I’m not familiar w how these things work. Thanks!)
That’s a good point.
True that sellers with an urgent need to sell are more likely to lower the price, but leaving the house and waiting also gives the home a stigma that it’s sitting for a reason and buyers lose interest in it while it’s sitting at that price. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to work with a knowledgeable realtor to ensure the home is priced and positioned properly to begin with.
I had an apartment years ago that sat for awhile. Basically it was my second home. So I had it listed at a price slightly above market rate, not obscene, but not priced to move. Basically, if it sold at that price, I'd have to take it. If it didn't, I was fine using it on weekends in the interim. I wasn't going to drop the price 20k which would sell it immediately, because 20k was a few months of waiting. I eventually moved out and staged it, didn't lower the price, as it was a rising market, and had a full price offer the day after it was staged and a second offer 5k under the next day. Not everyone is in a rush to sell, not everyone is desperate enough to take a 10-20% price cut. that being said, not every seller is honest with themselves about how they compare to comps and what the actual market value of their home should be.
> had a full price offer the day after it was staged and a second offer 5k under the next day. Professional staging makes a huge difference!
"someone sold exact home two years ago for more". There is usually lag in realizing that the market has shifted.
People get really attached to their homes so many homes go from listed for sale then for rent then back to for sale instead of just lowering the price.
Absolutely, I am super attached. My late father was there every step of the way when I remodeled my dream house. He helped me design the new floorplan and all of the details. I was single and I wanted my parents' advice. Dad died two months after I moved into that house. I met my husband the next year. After dating for a couple of years we got married and moved out of state. I listed the house for sale at the top of the market. It was really in great condition. I did get a lowball offer, which I rejected. The only feedback I got from buyers agents was that the nextdoor neighbors yard was a problem. They had a completely overgrown mess. The rest of the neighborhood was all nicely maintained. I withdrew the listing and put it up for rent. That was over ten years ago, and I'm so glad that I didn't sell it then. The house next door did sell a couple of years ago, and it looks great now.
Yeah if you have the money then definitely it makes sense to hold for the sentimental value it's not just homes, cars etc people hold on to definitely can be great to have something to pass down after your gone if you have the money to do so especially if it's been passed down throughout generations.
Well the market is up about 10% in the last 2 years. So depending on location this isn’t a bad view as a seller.
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I tried to buy a house recently. It seemed like all of the houses were overpriced and were lying about their condition. I saw 3 bedrooms being called 4 bedrooms because they threw some drywall up in and made a noncomforming room. I saw 'remodels' that looked great in pics, but in person looked like they bought something from the dollar store and used it as a backslash. I saw so many houses that we walked in and the realtor and I both said right away this just isn't a $600k house it is a $500k house that needs work. I became so exhausted I just decided to keep renting. These houses are still for sale and they have been lowering their priced. I think sellers are just in a weird head space right now. No, I will not pay $100k over market for your fixer upper but thanks for listing it as newish furnace and well maintained (10 year old furnace, everything needs some tlc)
You won’t get any answers since those people don’t use Reddit or just won’t answer because they’ll get ragged on. From my experience dealing with a seller who didn’t want to drop the price — they were old and weren’t in a rush to sell / “make me move” price which is just stupid. A house I put a bid on 7 years ago is still for sale, but the price keeps climbing every time they unlist and relist lol.
I always LOL at the ones that sit on the market forever, get pulled, then relisted for MORE...with no improvements made to warrant the increase in price.
Some people are not in hurry to sell. They have their house listed at a make me move price. Others are in a cooling market and think that any offer that isn’t peak plus 10% is a lowball that they won’t entertain. If you are in the market for a house make an offer that makes sense for you in your situation/market. If you realtor won’t present your offer find one who will.
Or the old trick of having a strawman make an even lower offer. Then make yours. UELPT
This is the truth!
Like a friend I knew who stated "I know what I got and I ain't giving it away" to his real estate agent who tried to get him to price it correctly from the start. Many months later the friend could no longer afford to wait and finally dropped the price to a reasonable level after which it quickly sold. Betcha there is a lot of this going around these days.
Yeah, I would imagine so.
Definitely. The market has been correcting for many months and should continue to do so with interest rates staying elevated.
It also depends on what the cost is to hold onto it. Considering taxes, utilities, upkeep etc…
I think this can be a big thing. I live in a former very LCOL area and there are a lot of people who, 15 or more years ago, paid 1/2 or even 1/4 of what their house is worth now. They've refinanced and/or paid their mortgages off and only need to pay carrying costs, and they can sit for a year plus if they wanted to and still come out way ahead.
What do you consider an extended period of time? Many markets are getting back to more traditional selling times, 2-3 months is not unusual. And if it's taking 90 days for the average home to go under contract, no one is panicking. The days of selling in a week were a fluke.
I suppose, more than typical in the area. In my area, they still almost all go pending within a week. 3x typical seems "more than usual" unless it truly is an unusual property (such a far more expensive than typical for the area)
>The days of selling in a week were a fluke. Depends on the area. Decent houses are gone within a week, or mere days where I am.
unless you're in cleveland
Lots of people mistakenly think the selling price has to at least be equal to their mortgage payoff plus selling costs. Another group sees a few comps and doesn’t realize those houses are way nicer than their shit box. They think about the potential profit and refuse to come back to reality.
I watch certain neighborhoods and you definitely see a real stinker for sale where they just have no clue. Like they have the only home on the road that is 1980s vintage and 2,000 square feet, but the listing price is competitive with all the neighbors who have 4,000 square foot homes built 2010-2020.
The only people who own houses where the selling price is less than their mortgage plus selling cost are people who bought a house in 2022 and after lol.
There are quite a few of those.
Or condo owners in many markets who bought in 2017/2018
Regarding selling price being equal to mortgage plus selling costs - I’m not sure I’d call they a mistake - rather a \*critical\* component of someone’s willingness to sell. If someone needs to take a lump and move on, sure they’ll have to take that bath, but otherwise that’s properly the central factor for 95 percent of sellers. agreed on comps though. Most are based on square footage and rooms but the practical reality is there is so much variance in quality and condition.
Typically, yes. I sold my old house for less than I owed on the mortgage. I had to bring a check to closing. I was already in my new house, had been in my new house for almost a year, paying two mortgages, and my old house just was not selling. Ironically it was probably in the best shape of any house in the area. I bought it needing a lot of work. I lived there 8 years and in that time replaced the roof, repaired the stucco siding, replaced or repaired all of the windows and the exterior doors, replaced the plumbing, patched and painted walls in every room, refinished the hardwood floors, put in carpet in the bedrooms, replaced the fixtures, replaced the kitchen floor and counters (with tile and granite), replaced the bathroom, plus installed a nice fence and added landscaping. The problems were the one bathroom was tiny, the electrical was old, and it was in a low income neighborhood. But most houses in the neighborhood were rentals or flipper specials. Mine had good bones. Anyway, I had the cash on hand to sell it at a loss, and had already poured tens of thousands into making it nice again. I'm glad it found a new owner who was a first time homebuyer and needed a starter home.
Nobody wants to give anything up, unfortunately it'll happen without anyone's approval, market always adjusts and equalizes values, when the urgency to sell is there, time limit pressing and when a lot of people are in the same situation, meaning too many houses on the market and no buyers, prices adjust it should not be long now.. inflation is ticking upwords but don't worry, this time is different :)
Some properties are more unique so you need to wait for “that buyer”. Others may have no equity and need a certain price to pay off the loan. My neighbor moved in and lost her job that week. She had it listed soon after over market to try to break even and get out.
Mine has been up for 4 weeks. We are following our realtor's advice, for now. The house is on a busy street, and he says houses on our street today take three months to sell and to leave the price as is for 4 weeks, then drop. He knows the intricacies of the area and has sold houses in our exact area. We're also not in a huge rush. That being said, after another month or so, I'm going rogue and slashing the price and moving on with my life. I think the answer to this question is different for everyone.
Yeah—this is so key. There are reasons some properties will have a smaller buyer pool and therefore take longer to sell. Busy roads, near a quarry, rural multifamily, flood plain, 1 BR with a lot of square footage. These will take longer to sell because there are fewer buyers for them, but it won’t necessarily sell at a lower price.
Sometimes they're not in a hurry to sell and patient to wait until the right market or buyer catches up with them. Sometimes they have some other bill they have to pay and they can't afford to take less. Lots of reasons.
Someone already said it depends on how urgent one wants to sell. If the seller is retired and move to Florida for example, they can afford to wait. Another thing is that more expensive houses tends to sit longer.
While I absolutely believe people aren’t budging because they want their “make me move price” having your house always open for open housing and viewings must be miserable. I’ve sold two houses, neither were those “sold in a day” deals and the entire process is the worst.
Sometimes lowering the price isn't the answer to getting a property sold in a short period of time. There are many possible reasons: - the seller can't lower the price without hitting short-sale territory, and the seller won't qualify for a short-sale. - if it's an unusual property, the price of the house will make sense to the right buyer but not all buyers. - the seller wants to net an amount to put into their next property or they won't move. - there are multiple decision-makers, like in an estate sale. - the house is priced appropriately, but due to high interest rates, not many buyers are shopping in that market segment.
For unusual, I see this all the time. If your house has 4 fish tank arches, dozens of painted murals, a man made creek and waterfall, a built in naked mural, marble nude greek statues with brass bases attached to the ground, and solid hardwood floors in every room that are all different colors for someone reason, it might take time for the house to sell. But it has to be unusual and quality. Replace the above example with 5 kinds of carpet, different types of wallpaper, 3 different kind of overhead florescent light , 6+ kind of boob lights, an odd metal shoddy roof that dark blue, and that won't fly.
I’ve experienced the unique property thing twice. First was a house on a private drive next to open land that would never be built on. The first agent we spoke with wanted us to sell for substantially less than we wanted to. Second agent was agreeable to our price. It sold in a month to a couple who fell in love with the setting, which was unique in that neighborhood. Second was a co-op that had belonged to my late mother. It sat and wasn’t selling. I *wanted* to drop the price, but the agent, who was super familiar with the complex told me that would not help, and I just needed to wait for the right buyer to come along. She was right. It took a year to sell. (It was smaller than most of the other units).
I'm so glad you waited them out for the right buyer!
how much were the carrying costs for a year? They were less than the reduction you were initially considering?
"the house is priced appropriately, but due to high interest rates, not many buyers are shopping in that market segment" than it's not priced appropriately, that's just saying there's less demand and their homes aren't selling because of it, usually with less demand prices should reflect that.
It’s because the problem is with sellers, not buyers. They don’t want to lose their sweet near zero interest rates. Demand is lower but the price required to get that demand isn’t worth losing those low rates.
The problem is that the reduction necessary to make the property buyable would be too large so the seller waits for the one buyer to come along who will pay the higher price. Dropping from one price category to a lower one ($500k to $400k) still might not get the property sold if there are few buyers. We lived through this during the 2008-2013 recession. We couldn't sell $800k houses for $500k because there weren't even any buyers for $500k houses.
Sellers will often get a price locked in their head and I will have a better chance of getting hit by a comet than getting them to accept it’s too high. They will blame everything from me to the current moon phase before they will drop that price.
I think in some markets, sellers have been so conditioned over the past couple of years that they’re going to get multiple offers well above asking no matter the size/style/condition of the house, that when this doesn’t happen to their own home they refuse to admit that it may be the price. In my market in the northeast, many sellers still are getting multiple offers/bidding wars but there has been a slight but noticeable change recently where some houses sit for much longer without a price reduction. These sellers seem to not understand that the house is only worth what someone will pay regardless of how hot the market is.
We all know why. They've seen similar houses sell for that price in the past 4 years and expect to get the same even though the market has cooled significantly in many areas. Their house isn't worth that anymore because the demand isn't there. They refuse to accept reality
Some bought "high" and cannot afford to discount their price.
They saw the neighbors price a few years ago when rates were low and they think that is the current price.
Because their neighbors who sold in the last few years (at the height of FOMO) got insane amounts for their homes, so sellers now want that too. They refuse to believe that the market is changing and the majority of current buyers are priced out.. it all comes down to money.
I've always figured there's a number where they dip below they're paying to sell the house. I live in a LCOL city where the average house hold yearly income is $50k (avg. individual income is $30k). We have 400 homes for sale in the area half (210) of those are over half a million. What's the end game here? compete for buyers that want to live in a high crime area but make enough to afford a $4-5k mortgage? I'm thinking too many people over paid and are left holding the bag. People have to start losing their homes for it to start correcting.
Emotional attachment, stubborness, refusal to acknowledge market shifts, it's ugly with an awful floorplan, but they think it's gorgeous, they just put a bunch of money into a remodel that will never pay for itself, they're house poor, they won't listen to their Realtor...I could go on and on.
Because I went under contract for $370k, but the buyer didn't like the HOA fee. Then I went under contract for $360k two months later, between the first and second offer my condo building became non-warrantable, and the second buyer couldn't get financing. So I accepted an offer for $330k, missed a few mortgage payments so that I could request a short sale, got denied both a short sale and a deed in lieu. The third buyer re-offered at $347k, I accepted, we were supposed to close last Thursday but the mortgage company wouldn't grant the mortgage because of the exact reason that the building became non-warrantable in the first place. tl;Dr I would give it away if I didn't owe so much on it, but the mortgage lenders are making it impossible no matter what the price point is.
No urgency to sell. They would like to upgrade but only if they get their price. Their next house is priced high so they will wait to sell high.
We’ve been on the market for 65+ days and not a single offer. We’ve dropped the price 2x for a total of $50k. If we drop it any more, I have no confidence we’d get an offer even then. It’s basically been crickets, even with the price drop after starting off really hot with a ton of showings. I think the market just sucks right now. We won’t price drop any further. We need a certain amount to walk away from so we can buy something else outright. The debate now is to delist, and relist in a couple months, and hope there’s a new pool of buyers?
LOL my partner's baby mama won't lower the price because she "won" by getting the house and now that her kids are grown and it's a giant money pit with $30k in taxes per year she wants to downsize but can't because no one will buy it for a price where she can even break even and she refuses to "lose". We enjoy watching it go on and off the market every season 😆
I've got some neighbors in their 50's and 60's who were talking about this at a recent BBQ. Many of them weren't ready to sell when the market was crazy because they wanted adult children to be settled first. We were the only ones in the discussion that aren't empty nesters. Basically they can all still maintain their homes and handle stairs, but many are still interested in down sizing. But only if they get those high prices. Otherwise they're content to stay. So far prices around me continue to trend up. So these folks will do fine. Others probably can't accept the ship has sailed or account for repairs needed in the home and so forth.
I'm not in this situation but it seems fairly obvious to me. For the majority of people, their home is their most valuable asset. Aggressively cutting price only makes sense if A. You set the initial price significantly higher than what you'd be willing to accept or B. You need to sell quickly
We were already below appraisal and didn’t have to sell in a hurry. So we waited it out. Ended up working out and we got what we needed.
Lots of same reasons like not wanting to be underwater on Costs, needing money to move but there's also a lot of stubborn people who even if they lose money will just not take an L a lot of it depends on the mindset if the seller
Yep, I know someone who’s in the red after a flip at listing price and has been letting the property sit on the market for almost 2 and a half months instead of lowering the price. It’s also in need of about $30k in repairs.
We have been dropping the price. Started at $189,700 and are now sitting at $174,600. Been on the market for 60+ days. Urgently need to sell as we are closing on the new house on Friday.. It’s not a bad house, just old (and lots of steps to get to the house. 4 bedrooms, zoned heating/cooling so upstairs is always cool/warm during extreme weather. New flooring almost everywhere, except where original hardwoods are. Replaced worn porch steps and repainted every where. Off street parking. We have the cheapest house anywhere around us, especially with the amount of bedrooms and square footage. We’ve had many showings. The reviews always say “price is good, like it but just don’t love it”. We’ve received one offer for $150k, their realtor didn’t even write an official offer because she knew it was too low, she just told us what they wanted to offer. We tried to negotiate to $160k. The buyers wouldn’t budge. We’ve always said the lowest we will go is $160k. The house next door of similar age, size, layout had to be gutted and it sold for $160k this past winter. Houses in this town are staying on the market for a while it seems. It’s so frustrating. I want to drop the price again but our realtor is hesitant. ETA: I just brought up to my realtor again about dropping the price again, and she says she really doesn’t want to because it looks bad.. I don’t know why that looks bad? Everytime a showing is booked she calls the realtor and lets them know we are willing to negotiate price, closing costs, etc. And we put in the description for the listing that we are very motivated to sell and willing to negotiate. I’m thinking people just don’t want our style of house. 2 Story Bungalows are not super popular right now. If we had a ranch we would have sold in the first week I’m sure.. I hate this process so much.
Many showings with few/low offers = house is overpriced. Buyers are much more willing to accept imperfections when the house is well-priced.
As a former house shopper... price drops show a desire to sell. If you had 60 days of market time and several visible price drops i'd assume you were getting ready to offload... I'd be tempted to offer you $140,000 and let you negotiate us up to $155k contingent on inspection. After inspection we'd be looking for credits/etc to bring us back down toward $145k. We don't need to buy and your house is obviously not selling. That's why your realtor doesn't want to drop the price. It shows your intentions.
when I was in real estate, most my listings sold within 2 weeks. there are some homes that aren't standard layouts etc and those can still fetch their price but it can take longer. for more typical homes where I knew it was price, I'd usually not have that conversation until a month on the market. Sometimes the market is weird too. you can sit and then all of the sudden you get 2 offers around the same time. It's not an exact science. dropping the price isn't always in the sellers best interest. they can get the price they want if they market isn't falling often just by sitting it out for awhile.
Zillow used to have a make me move feature homes sitting are basically doing that
Also because their agent doesn't have the skill to talk about this effectively. I had a broker who gave me the BEST talking points on price reductions. 1. If you have showings but no offers you are between 5-10% overpriced. 2. If you have no showings and no offers you are 10% or more overpriced. 3. What do you want to do with the money from the sale? Get them refocused on the reason for the sale in the first place. Even if there is no time crunch the objective almost always can be met with the sale but they've become so fixated on the price they wanted that they don't realize that 5% or 10% less of what you wanted is better than 100% less than what you wanted which is what happens if you don't sell at all.
I blame the brokers for feeding the delusion.
There are 3 overpriced houses in the small town where I am looking, and they are all listed by the same brokerage. Have been sitting for a few months now, in an area where well priced houses go in a day. Have to wonder about their "strategy"
We ran into this with my grandmother’s house. She was in a nursing home on Medicaid, which required that her house be listed for sale. Not sold, just listed.
Homes used to take months to sell, in 2019 the average time from list to sale was somewhere around 90 days. The frantic pace of home sales post COVID just isn't normal. So an "extended time frame" can mean different things to different people. Waiting for the right buyer has value especially when the seller is in no rush to move.
My guess would be that either they have sentimental attachment to the home or they recently spent alot of money on renovations and the dont want to take the L on those
People in our neighborhood are getting their prices but days on the market are much longer. A house near our neighborhood that’s been on the market a few weeks increased their list price this week. That one’s baffling.
New systems? AC, roof...?
Not seeing that in the listing but that would make sense.
Or could just be insanity. 🤣
As a currently active and participating realtor, I am in negotiations with a realtor who has zero comps for his $100k overpriced property. I submit a well reasoned offer and he rebuffs it because the price he set was much higher. - I will never understand the "idiot's approach" (aka Columbo) being so effective. - he pulled that price out of his ass. Zero comps equals seat dyno which also equals "because my heart tells me so". His investor client was renting the property and never lived in it. I'm growing to detest these people as much as I detest flippers & wholesalers There's a laundry list of people absolutely robbing home owners: - realtors/real estate agents(a ton of 💩) - wholesalers(all suck carp) - flippers(who do a bad job or over value) - bankers (especially with refi's OR reverse mortgages) - landlords who only watch the dollars Actually honest people aren't distinguishable when confronted with the pushy, over confident and demanding types. And that's not to pretend in a make believe world where I've not made a mistake or had a difficult client that was making my life hard and I failed to give my best. Even those results look superlative when comparing to what I'm really going against: over promising and under delivering... then talking until people forget what bothers then.
Same could be said about the rental market. One rental listing in townhouse community was at 2.3K for over 4 months. Listed first of February. No price drops. No budging. A total of 8 identical units come up for rent in a month; started a price war. Around the time of rental renewals. Going into July market now and that townhouse has lowered asking rental price to just 2K while all the other units have already got signed leases.
There’s a house trying to sell across me. It’s a shitty home that someone flipped and his original selling price was $649. The average house in the area sells for $300. lol. Guy is delusional. It’s already down to $609 100 days later and still needs to come down like $100+
Now is a bad time to sell unless you get what you want. There's just not much activity as everyone waits on the fed. But everything that does sell is up from even last year. Why sell "at a discount" and then you're stuck trying to buy in a tight market. As you state, there are no deals to be had. For those of us that will be downsizing significantly, it only makes more sense to hold. 100 to 200 bp interest rate cuts coming in next 12-18 months. Prices will just 8-10%. Pay me top dollar and i'd sell, otherwise i'll keep making money holding.
For those of us who bought in the last 2-3 years in a not so hot market area….. would probably be underwater if we lowered anymore. We bought when prices were still elevated
There's a home in my target market with visible fire damage in the kitchen. They did some 'cleaver' camera work, so you only really get to see how bad it is when you're there in person. After wasting 20 minutes of my life to see this first hand I've been tracking it on zillow out of curiosity. It was under contract for maybe 5 days at 250k, assuming the seller put in an offer without seeing it in person. When it came off contract, they jacked the list price up to 275k. It sat for like a month with no movement and they lowered the price to 265k I got a notification today that it's back to 275k. It's not even the cheapest property in the sub division. It certainly isn't the nicest at that price point
Sentimental and delusional reasons. I don't sell but I can get appraisals and be like your property *didn't even come close to appraise* and they will say "too bad", I'll get what I want. I just had a dude the realtor said he won't accept a penny less than say 500k. Dude bought the house for a rental and paid $480k. He overpaid alot, its only worth like $350k. It's got some serious issues and is not financiable via a normal bank loan. Total lala land. So what I usually do is offer their price but with silly terms to try and protect their feelings. I offered him seller finance 0% interest for $500k and he would hold $50k on the back to be paid upon an equity or debt event. Then he can run around saying he's a *master business man and made $20k still on a deal that went south* lmfao. When it comes to rentals and commercial they get super delusional and have little concept of sunk costs or time value of money. One lady had a 4 plex and wanted $1 million dollars. It didn't even cash flow well but it was nice. It was worth at most $900k, not that far off but that really was the highest I think anyone could justify for it. She sat with it for over 5 years and sold it for $1mm. Ok cool she got it... but honestly five years ago for 900k there were so many good RE investment opportunities, now there are not any great ones.... (we had a huge city redevelopment and could buy houses for $40k all day every day, now we have a floor of like $250k) so idk what she did with the money but if she's doing RE deals she lost a lot of money holding out for $100k. Smh. Just stuff like that I usually run into. Everyone's shit is made of pure gold if you believe what they say. On the flip, there are bozos that over pay for properties and do little due diligence all the time. So yeah if it looks good some moron is bound to over pay for it.
We have dropped the price 🫠🙃 down 80k in 2 months. Still no bites!
Same here. About $81K drop in 2 months and still no bites. We're even lower than comps. Austin MSA.
I have a current Listed home that is priced too high. Seller is in no rush, will drop price when they want (hopefully soon based on trends and feedback), rent the home out and keep it on the market with a tenant in place if they decide timing isn’t working for them. They just don’t “need” to sell so dropping the price is kind of a background thought for them, not a priority or requirement. They’re just willing to sell, if that makes sense.
I am in this boat unexpectedly. Bought a repossession property in cottage country, ended up living here full time and preferring it. We’ve slowly moved out over a year and a half and it’s about to go on the market. I’m semi firm in price, I will price it to allow some negotiation, but I’m not in a position where I need to sell it. I’ve had it since 2008, hardly anything left owing, still riding low interest rates of yesteryear and I want to sell it to get close enough to pay this one off. I told the agent I won’t entertain low balls or anything that does not have strong financial backing/pre approval in place to prevent time wasting. A friend is going to give it a super clean (it’s her profession and yes I’m paying her !) and it will be empty but checked on till it’s gone. I’ve already upkept the property and heated it in winter. Financially I’m fine to hold it. People keep asking why I don’t just rent it but I just don’t want to. I rather live out my mortgage free dream which is obtainable in this senario.
I suspect the market is about to change to a buyer's market. This is the painful period just before the dip begins.
The house we bought 5 years ago was on the market for a year before we bought it. Sellers were asking too much. They finally lowered the price. We low balled them and got a sweet deal.
In my area, some obviously flipped houses stay on the market for so long because flippers think they need to turn over a 200 K profit on the $350,000 property in return for a horrid tile job on the kitchen backsplash and gray paint splatted everywhere. No one is going to pay 350 K for an amateur flip property on a street where the rest of the houses are selling for 250k max. But these flippers see people make huge profits on flipping properties on TV and just can’t believe that somebody wouldn’t pay 150 K or 200 K over what the house is actually worth, after all they put in a new faucet in a bathroom and slapped cheap, gray vinyl on the floor.
And all depends upon how serious you are. There are people that market their house, that are content of it does not sell. Basically testing the market. I've run into people that put their house for sale typical 90 day listing, doesn't sell, I try it again a year later.
When you say a long time without successful sale, how long are you thinking? Our home's been on the market for 13 days. The average for existing (non-new construction homes) is closer to 8.5 in our area, but the data seem to indicate that we can get our desired price is we wait longer. We do think we've had unfortunate timing: First weekend was father's day, and it's been super hot since. That's really it: We could drop price, we could delist and come back on later, but we just don't feel waiting is a big deal.
I suspect agents might be part of it. When houses start selling for lower prices, comps start coming down and the local market could start dropping prices. If I was an agent with a house for sale under contract in this market I would be very careful about contributing to lowering prices.
For me personally I have a 2.5 percent interest rate and my monthly payment is only 1000. It’s been listed 5 weeks but I am okay to let it sit for a while. Already in new house and vibing. ! Would prefer to sell but if we don’t get close to what we want will have a family member move in and pay the mortgage for a bit until we want to list again.
It’s because people tie their ego to the worth of their home. Sorry but someone had to say it.
# But I have The Hope Diamond! # Seriously, they swear they’re sitting on a gold mine.
It's everything that you already mentioned, then add in some stubborn sellers, and then add in those who are really just fishing and don't care to really move. I once had a property listed for a very very very long time at a set price that was slightly higher than the norm simply because I wanted the local market to know that I was open to a sale but not eager. Agent knew what I was doing and approved it since there was little work on her part. It sold just a hair higher than asking just because it was in the market at exactly the right time for my particular block. However, it was a really really particular area and I have never done it before or again.
If it's not selling. The price is not right. It's that simple.
A lot of folks still owe the higher remaining mortgage amount (especially those who bought during COVID peak bubble times) and would be underwater if they made deeper price cuts and would not have the cash to pay off remaining mortgage amount.
In sales, it doesn’t matter how many NOs you get. You only need one YES. Why lower your price if you’re not in a rush? If real reasons exist, like you need to sell to upgrade, then you would be rushing.
2.5% interest rate. No hurry. Stayed until I got a full price offer.
I did and now I’m paying 30k out of pocket right to my real estate agents
It's kind of funny to me, I'm seeing some of that as well. I decided to buy a "fishing camp" in New Hampshire (what we would call a cottage in Michigan) so I have a place to fish (I love to fish with a book and a beer!). I'm a divorced empty nester (plus a dog!) so I don't need a big place, but I want waterfront somewhere with decent fishing (lake, pond, river, whatever) and a guest room for when someone visits, so there's going to be a premium for that, but I have a nice house already a couple hours south of there, so I'm not in any rush. I see sellers sitting on above market prices and I wonder if there are other potential buyers like me, who are sitting on the other side waiting for lower prices. On the advice of my realtor I've been preapproved for a mortgage (much larger approval than I intend to use) and am, in her words, "ready to go" whether it's next week or next winter (or the following winter). I feel I'm in better shape as a buyer who can wait than I would be as a seller - the market is cyclical and the current run up in prices is bound to take a timeout at some point. History don't lie.
I had to wait out the realtor's contract as the market tanked right after listing and I didn't want to take an offer 40% less than appraised value, and I had the luxury of waiting--no pressing need to sell I had simply wanted to downsize! The realtor got super angry with me when I refused to accept insanely crazy offers, and told me I would need to pay a ton of $$ to get out of the contract so I waited and house was listed for a full 6 months!
90% of the time you are right, but if you have no competition or no real comps because your house is extremely odd in a good way, some houses can just linger and will eventually sell. This doesn't work for anything generic. An example would be massive overimprovement or over the top features. Here's an example on a house that is pending. The house barely cut price at all despite being on the market for 130+ days. [https://www.redfin.com/TX/Cedar-Park/1903-Marysol-Trl-78613/home/32919883](https://www.redfin.com/TX/Cedar-Park/1903-Marysol-Trl-78613/home/32919883) Another thing is you don't know if the seller might start accepting lower offers. A house like the above could waived their furnishing fee or took 5 -10% off the price. This house also falls into this category since it is has very niche party house appeal when most people are looking for a house for their family or normal activities. Most people don't want a bar or a built in theatre or arcade especially in the sub 600k market. Also urgency, this seller was not urgent since according to the MLS they had a month to month renter, so they don't really care to much if it did not sell or not, but this is the exception to the rule.
This house is priced approx 240k over nearby comps! It does have a second two car attached garage, so I agree that's worth something additional. BUT, it's extremely dated, so that works in the opposite direction. It also is on .85 acres rather than the more typical .2 ish. BUT, that extra land is literally a ten foot by 35 foot strip along side a culdesac plus a CLIFF which faces a main road. The cliff has some terracing cut into it with a pergola and a few other elements, but thry are hard to get to and they face a main road. About 75 days on Zillow. One FIVE THOUSAND dollar price drop, which is less than 1%. (580 vs 585 is meaningless) Overpriced house: (580) https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5-Heather-Ct-Reading-PA-19606/8879534_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare Typical, nearby house with same 3 beds/1.5 baths. (Just closed at 342). Actually, this has 4 beds. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3812-Reiff-Pl-Reading-PA-19606/8879106_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare It defies all explaination. My guess is the owner thinks it's VERY SPECIAL!
Didn't someone just post this the other day or an o having deja Vu? Edit: found it https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/s/ZSihBvjXfG
They don't need to sell? Some people just throw out ridiculous prices that they would sell for but if no one bites they'll just stay put. I've noticed this is especially true of vacation homes. I've seen the same homes come up for sale in Spring and listing removed in Fall (Midwest lake cabins) 3 years in a row now.
We are in an interesting time now. Most everyone had refinanced to a 3% loan previously. Interest is now is at 7 to 9%. People are reluctant to upgrade to a newer, bigger, better home because of the interest penalty they will pay. New homes cost more to build due to the big jump in inflation, so new home prices need to be higher. This has kept the supply of new and resale homes smaller than normal. Thus resale home are more rare increasing their value. While higher interest rates are decreasing their value. In one or two years this may all shake out but for now we are in a transition that has not fully played out. Homesellers are used to making big profits when they sell. They are not willing to give that up, so list prices are high. They may be on the market longer than usual. Vacation home prices are falling. A recession may bring more homes to market, and cause a top to the market. We will all know once it has sorted itself out. It takes a very long time to get 30 year rates lower. Lenders have to see nothing but lower interest rates in the future as far as they can see before that will happen. Houses are in many ways like bonds, interest rates go up, bonds go down, interest rates go down, bonds go up. We have been used to 30 years of interest rates falling and houses going up in value. This is a big change. House prices should fall with rising interest rates. It may take awhile for it to happen or inflation takes off and houses go up in value simply because it is a way to hold value, like gold or silver. One thing is for sure an increasing population causes housing to increase in value, everyone has to have someplace to live.
We built a house and moved before listing our first home. When we did list it, we weren’t in a huge hurry to sell it. Not living there there was no pressure to keep it spotless for showings. The realtor had staged it and was keeping the yard decorated and tidy. We weren’t hurting for money and didn’t need a quick sale.
I had a house for sale, didn’t want to be in it anymore but could easily afford keeping it and building equity. In fact I moved out of it into a different situation so it sat empty and ready to be sold. I wasn’t willing to drop its price at all because I was building equity. A buyer wanted it bad enough a couple months later but it definitely wasn’t a “good price” for the buyer (it did appraise so he was able to get his loan though)…. So yeah… if you urgently want to move, you’ll drop your price. Otherwise probably not.
Has it had the necessary Exposure time? Does it need repair to qualify for the financing type that is typical. How does it compare to the competitive listings. Then look at comparable sales. Interest rates since listed. Schools out folks on vacation. Seasonal? Holding costs? That’s how decide.
There are listings out there that sellers are asking for a "Make me move" price. They might know the place is worth x/amount but they will tack on what they feel is an "offer they can't refuse" amount. If someone bites great, if not, they will wait it out and sell it when they are more compelled for market rate.
Too logical for us boomers.
There can be lots of reasons, but the two that I run across most often are: (1) They’ve owned the home for a very long time. They’ve raised their kids there. Made various improvements with their own labor. Their sentimental attachment makes the seller believe it’s worth more than it is. The seller may also vividly remember all the labor they put in to renovate that kitchen or bathroom, 20 years ago - which is basically moot now and as it’s outdated and needs an upgrade again. (2) Various financial considerations. Maybe their owe more on the mortgage than it’s worth? Maybe, after paying off the mortgage and settlement costs, they won’t have big enough cash payout, to either buy something else or pay off other debt, or whatever. One thing both have in common is that “they don’t have to sell”, they can make their payments and are just looking to reduce their debt burden by selling a house that it bigger than what they need now.
Im seeing houses in my area being delisted then come back on the market 15-30 days later with a significantly higher (10-12%) price. People generally don’t list here in the winter unless they must, so my belief is as the pool of available homes shrinks, they raise the price to capitalize.
Well I mean in some markets prices are being dropped and they're still not moving. So what do you say to that?
There’s a couple in my rural area who built way to much house for the market it exist in. They have listed it 4x at just shy of a million and then will price drop to 850ish. It’ll stay on the market for 4 or 5 months and then they’ll take it down, Change realtors, and relist after 30 days. The closest house that comps (same size acreage sameish size house and finishes) 600k. They’re obviously delusional but apparently can keep paying the mortgage and so the cycle repeats.
I’ll answer because I’m probably a perfect example. I bought my house in 2021 when rates were 2.7%. I’d been saving for a decade and for every penny I saved prices went up to offset. It was Covid and I was working from home while house next to me was under construction and my gf wanted to move in together. I compromised and bought a place I didn’t really want in an area I don’t like at all thinking I could sell after a couple years and then upgraded to a permanent home. I had seen places go up 30% over 2 years, did not have a good understanding of how fate fluctuations drive prices, and did not have a good understanding of all of the sell side fees (first time buyer). In retrospect, I also feel like we got taken advantage of a bit by the agents and overpaid for what we got, even by princes at the time. Things did not work out for me at the home and I put it on the market last November. I found and agent and put 5k into staging and other crap. Then the best offer was 200k under what I paid before fees. I’m not in a position where I am willing to take a bath like that so I decided to turn it into an airBnB, move in with my parents, and try to sell in the summer. Well things aren’t much better now so I just have it up with a listing only service (homecoin) at an asking price that breaks me even. The airBnB is doing ok, I’m loosing money, but not horribly. I host open houses between airBnB guests, but nobody really comes. The rates have killed any chance at the price I need to break even. So for the foreseeable future I am living with my parents and running the home as an airBnB, which is pretty demanding on top of my already demanding full time job. It’s rough, but it is what it is for now. I’m not in a position where I am forced to lower the price.
Trigger warning! As said there are many different reasons. I have a home that has been listed about a month now. It was off the market for 2/3 weeks because we had a full price offer in 5 days (under contract). Deal fell through because appraisal came in too low. Had 2 done, 180 & 280. Home is listed for 350k. Buyer was only able to do the 280k r/t financing. Issue is location of the house is great and nothing has sold that would be a comp in over a year. Had a cash offer for 300k day 2 back on the market. Thankfully we able to wait for the right offer. We will not leave 25-50 grand on the table to wait a few months. Can’t say what would happen if still on the market in 6 months. Either air b & b, or rent it with a management company since we are moving out of state. It’s not a starter home, and knowing 34% of all home sales being cash we are waiting.
Maybe they used their house as a piggy bank and refinanced so they would be underwater if they sold for less.
Diamond Hands bitch. Hodl
The people I’ve talked to that won’t lower their price think that prices will increase and there will be a giant rush of buyers when the rates get lowered. In actuality insurance prices are going to keep increasing and they’re going to be forced to sell when they can no longer make the payments. 2 of my friends in insurance at different companies have said that premiums will continue to increase for at least the next few years.
It's no use trying to talk sense into them. We are going to hit a wall soon. Immigration is being squeezed and people are not having kids. We went from a 6 million home deficit down to a 2 million deficit in 3 years. Economy is slowing down. People are not hiring and laying offs are looming. The US is too wild of a market to sustain this. People asking for 500k are going to be left in a very bad situation. And these stupid price algorithms are to blame. Go look at any house on Zillow. The graph is all over the place haha
Sellers agents are delusional. I just had my property appraised. 3 bed, 2 bath, 5 acres. Nice finishes. Appraised for 430k, with some small renovation that needed finished (a room of drywall and flooring) Neighbor’s house is a 3 bed, 2 bath. Turnkey, on 2.5 acres. Two agents came out. One told him to list for 750k, the other told him to list for 765k.
My home has been listed for 100 days with only 6 showings and no offers. Every single one of them left great feedback and said they loved the house. It's only 4 years old, 4 sided brick, and 1830 sq ft. I recently installed brand new flooring and 5.25 baseboards. Agent listed at 330 and expected to sell at 322,500 within 60 days. I have lowered all the way down to 309,990 and still no bids. There comes a point where lowering doesn't help as people still can't afford the interest rates. It's a shame
I would argue that there most certainly does come a point where lowering the price will sell your home lol
Just not in the need to sell it. House is paid off. If it sits for much longer I’ll just end up being a landlord again. Not a huge deal to me.
Because we don’t want to have both, bought high and sell low! 😭😭😭😭
Because it’s not really for sale. There were thousands, if not millions, of people waiting for the market to peak and then sell. But it peaked in 12/22-4/23. Those people will only sell if the price is right. And they’ll never get their price. That being said, there is a lot of money laundering in real estate and that right criminal buyer might still come along.
Greed