The real estate market here in Northern Virginia is doing pretty well. Median Home sales prices in Northern Virginia are up over last year 7%. However, there are still isolated incidents of specific sellers being sabotaged by a neighbor/seller who is not clever enough to see that if you just stage your house and make minor improvements, then market it well, you can sell your home for market value and don't need to slash the price 10% in less than one month.
This is happening to some of my listings right now. There are comparable properties that are slashing their prices drastically with not that many days on the market. There are recent sold comps that are higher. These are not short sales, not distressed properties. They have been on the market less than one month. As a seller's agent who has been getting, on average, 97% of list price with just a few weeks on the market, I can't understand this strategy.
When there are comps to justify your price, reducing your price 10% over the course of 3 weeks is insane, when your house is cluttered and your pictures look like my 5 year old took them with my Droid after rubbing sunscreen on the lens. I am all for price reductions when the market is telling you something. But give it a few weeks at least. And make 100% marketing effort before slashing the price.
This home in particular, has not even de-cluttered. There are pictures with stacks of stuff on tables and dressers. Dark, fussy photos of corners of rooms. Try staging and hiring a professional photographer. When there are comps to justify your price, hang in there more than a few weeks before caving. Proper marketing and staging will cost you much less than 35k (the 10% of this one condo), and will get an offer in hand and will not bring down the property values of your neighborhood.
The sign of a truly good Arlington Virginia real estate agent, is one who can actually convince their sellers to prep the property well so it gets top dollar, will go the extra mile to take excellent pictures, who will market the property to its fullest potential, not one who just convinces the seller to make extreme price reductions and cause the rest of the community suffer by overzealous price reductions. But when the neighbors decide that they'd rather throw 35K out the window than pick up their house and hold their agent accountable for good photos, it will cause even the best seller and their agents to have to reduce their price too, putting an artificial downward pressure on values.
Our market is strong and the buyers do write contracts, and close. In condo communities it takes usually 2-2.5 months to sell.
These sellers and their agents, need an intervention! Try marketing the property before slashing the price. It might work!
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