Here in Central New Jersey, many agents (and almost every home seller) are refusing to admit or accept the fact that the market is in decline. Regardless of dropping prices, significant price reductions, larger numbers of expiring listings, too many agents are blaming buyers and sellers and not the market.
It seems pretty obvious that our market has been experiencing a decline of approximately 1% per month since this past June. There's more than a 7 month supply of imventory while at this time last year, there was only about a 2 month supply. With more homes coming to market, and most of them priced well above market, it's obvious that the sellers don't understand the market AND the listing agents are failing to inform them.
Gone are the days of taking a listing, even at an escalated price, and allowing the market to catch up. Gone, too, are the days of letting just the MLS sell the listing. It's now a market that will force agents to work to get properly priced listings AND attract ready, willing, and able buyers to those listings. It will be interesting over the next 6-12 months to see agents who have never worked a declining market struggle to adjust or fall by the wayside.
I'd love to hear your feelings on this and share how your market is performing.
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