I am sure most of us have had an experience where we list a house and receive an offer in the first week. It may not be a full price offer and the seller says, " It has only been on the market for a week. Let us wait." The seller does not take the offer. The buyers find another house.
As weeks and months go by , you do not get any other offer and then when you do get an offer, it is less than the first offer. The seller may end up taking it or countering to get the offer that was turned down a few months ago.
When a house is first listed, it creates a lot of activity and when a person makes an offer , it may be based on comps provided by their agent or it may be a buyer looking for a bargain, but when the house is on the market for a long period, the buyers are more likely to make a low offer. So after waiting, the seller may end up with the same price that was turned down.
I had one such experience last year. I listed a house for $450,000 . Within a few weeks got an offer for $400,000 no contingencies. The seller turned it down and he was right in this case, because the market price was $450,000 and the reason the buyer offered the price was, he was looking for a bargain and because it was a cash deal..
Unfortuantely, prices started going down. More houses came on the market in the development. There were 15 houses at one time. Some were relos who sold for less and my seller had to reduce the price to keep up.It finally sold for a little over $400000, after being vacant for a couple of months. No one could have foreseen the values coming down in the area, but it happened, though it should not have happened.
In this Buyer's market, the seller should be honest with the agent and tell the agent the bottom line and realize that there are more homes for sale than number of buyers looking to buy..
But on a more positive note, I was glad to see the statistics for April 2007 compared with April 2006 and in many townships in Bucks County price of homes have gone up over 20% compared to same period last year..
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