We can all relate to the timewasters which "The Ethics Guy", Kim Spencer, touches on: "Time, it's not on our side; tick-tock, tick-tock"
One of my peeves is showing misrepresented properties; the ‘one bedroom and den being represented as a two bedroom' example Kim raises wastes my time, my client's time, and skews the information for anyone doing a CMA on a two bedroom.
Chances are you won't know about this misrepresentation until you arrive at the showing and see it, unless of course you're very familiar with the specific property itself.
Perhaps the biggest misrepresentation and timewaster of all (yet least discussed) is overpriced listings.
Unless you know the individual nuances of the entire housing inventory of a neighbourhood, it is unlikely you will be able to recognize an overpriced listing without spending time comparing.
It would be interesting to know how many contracts are prepared and presented but never accepted. I recently read that over 20% of listings expire because they don't sell (source forgotten, sorry; please correct me if you have reliable source).
You can read hundreds of articles and blog posts, most written by Realtors, warning about the perils of overpricing, and yet there can be little doubt that bidding the highest price for a listing is still practiced.
In our agency relationships we continue allowing Sellers to overprice when we have an obligation to work in their best interest. How can the practice of overpricing therefore be considered protecting the best interest of the Seller?
It appears to me that the frequency of overpriced listings is in direct correlation to a downward trend through a balanced market and into a buyer's market. The Sellers expectations are notoriously high at the best of times, so in a declining market overpricing is exacerbated; at least until reality sinks in.
While establishing a realistic listing price will depend on many factors, and keeping in mind that we accept a listing with the idea of selling it, the discussion of declining market conditions and overpricing raises an interesting question:
What do you think; how far over the market value constitutes an overpriced property?
John in Port Moody, BC
Real Estate Evolved
;)
Links;)
Tags (Tag Cloud);)
Archives
It is in your MLS stats. Look at two different stats... Original List Price/Sale Price... Usually it is around 95% or higher, so anything more than 3-5% is overpriced. Then look at the new listings over the last month and the sold listings over the same period. That percentage gives you a real good idea of how many properties are expiring.