This weekend was the local builders shop till you drop weekend. As I penned on Friday the builders were going all out to get buyers to their doors. I had buyers out Saturday at one location and Sunday at another.
There wasn’t any doubt the builders were offering financial incentives to get the buyers to the table and putting the hype in over-drive to make them feel that this was going to be the last chance to get the “deal of the century.” Since we are early in the 21st century it might be a rather tall statement to say this weekend was the best deal that buyers would ever see.
Having sold a new construction property two weeks ago at a 150K discount with straight negotiation, I’m not 100% convinced that the deals the builders were offering this weekend were anymore than setting the prices where they should have been 3 months ago. It has been obvious to anyone in real estate for months that prices have been correcting in our area. I think we will see more of these sales as the correction continues.
I am presenting an offer to a builder tomorrow, this one that wasn’t on TV or advertising huge discounts in the paper. My sense is that they will be willing to seriously discuss our offer. It will be interesting to see how much business this weekend generated. I’m not sure how we will check the numbers. Builders inventory is not usually in the MLS and tax records don’t show incentives so unless we can decipher something from the end of the year stock reports (for the public companies) knowing the true impact of this weekend may remain a mystery.
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