As the water over on the beach gets warmer and warmer,  I keep thinking that we will see more than the trickle of customers who have stopped by the office.

Here on the shores of Bogue Sound by the beaches of Emerald Isle, most of us were hoping for some strengthening of the real estate market.

With a few exceptions we are running behind last year. While we still have time for the clients to come this summer, I am beginning to wonder whether we will have a successful year or not.

Right now most buyers have been conditioned by the national media to expect a bargain.  I can show them the prices of homes that have sold in the last six months, and yet some are still hoping that they can get a "deal."

On the other hand, some sellers are just digging their heels in and making the decision to take their property to the grave with them.

Obviously there are some sellers who need to sell, and over time they become much more reasonable.  Still even in those cases, there are few buyers to take advantage of these well priced homes.

It is as if buyers and sellers are waiting for a signal to tell them that the laws of negotiation are no longer in suspension.  I have heard all the arguments.

Well I just don't want to sell at that price.  It will hurt the prices in the subdivision.  I don't want to do that to the people in the neighborhood.  It would not be fair to everyone.

That's an interesting sentiment, but it leads to gridlock in neighborhoods, and potentially even more pricing problems when an appraiser cannot find any comps because no houses or lots have sold for over a year.

When a neighborhood tries to hold its prices up without real justification for those prices, buyers just go elsewhere. You have to have a really good piece of terra firma if you want someone to pay $100K more for it just because you think it is worth that.

Eventually the market will determine what your property is worth.  You might delay the market, but you cannot hide from it.  When what few buyers are in the area buy elsewhere, then you need to carefully look at how you have your home priced.

It works the same way for a buyer, if your offers keep getting turned down, then you might want to look at the price of homes that are actually selling.

I keep trying to convince our powers that be, that once in a while our caravan should be focused on the properties that have sold not the ones that have just listed.  I think it would be very enlightening.  My wife and I often do our own tour of what has recently sold.

Back in February I had a buyer make an offer on a property.  I had tried to convince him to go higher but he wanted a deal and insisted on making an offer before I could even pull comparable properties for him.  He didn't get his deal, but I took the time to print a number of properties that had sold and mailed them to him.  Now he is planning another trip to the area, and when he comes, he will have a much better idea of what might be possible.

The best way that I can describe our market is by looking at airline pricing.  We all know that the people who are willing to pay the most and act the quickest get the best seats.  We also know that those who wait for a deal sometimes get a really good one.  Other times they have to wait for another airplane or end up squeezed into a center seat with not enough room.

The scenario I have painted is a little different than the traditional real estate transaction where the first people often get the best deals on lots and houses.  I am not saying that it is gone forever.  What I am saying is that right now what those people get when they resell their property might not be more than they paid for it.

A lot will depend on when they bought their ticket, how much they paid for it, and how well they have guessed the current market's needs.

Will holding out for that extra twenty or thirty thousand work in this market?  That's hard to say, but the odds are much better right now that you might not get it, and you might wait a long time for another offer.

It just depends on how you have priced your home.  Pricing it unrealistically for a market where buyers are hard to find is likely not a good strategy.

The better decision is if you value your property at more than your real estate agent thinks he or she can get for it, then do not put it on the market.  Wait a few years and see if the prices come back.

Just don't count on those rising prices being just around the corner.  I suspect we have yet to see the full impact of higher energy costs. It might be great for an area like ours where we end up having temperatures much of the year close to what we want our houses to be, and it might hurt us since we are good distance from many population centers.

Time will tell down here on the Southern Outer Banks.