One of the first questions that I ask a potential seller when I arrive at his house to discuss listing his home is, do you really need to sell?  If they answer that question with no, then my recommendation is to hold on to the property.  I'm sure that this sounds funny coming from someone who makes his living listing and selling real estate in Big Bear.  That being said, before I take a listing I make sure that the seller really needs to sell the property and I also need to make sure that he can afford to sell the property.  The reason I am asking these questions is that I need to make sure that the home owner is in a position to compete with the bank owned properties if he needs too.

The few bank owned properties that list in the Big Bear market are driving the market.  I checked the Big Bear Multiple listing service this morning and out of 895 residential listings, 51 of them are bank owned.  Just over 5 % of the current inventory is bank owned properties yet they account for 60% of the overall sales.  The bank doesn't want the homes in their inventory, so when they list the property, they price them to sell.  It is not uncommon to see multiple offers on these properties and they normally sell very quickly.