Buying a Home in the Seattle Market is Not Like Ping Pong.
You know the game... little ball, table top, back and forth, back and forth.
I was never good at ping-pong.
I would often serve too low, sending the ball straight into the net, or more often, overestimating my strength skill and missing the table altogether with an overly aggressive return.
For more than 24 years I have been representing home buyers and sellers throughout King & Pierce Counties, and I'm always surprised when a buyer wants to write an unrealistically low offer.
The fact of the matter is, many Seattle Home Sellers aren't willing to Negotiate....much.
"What?"
You say
"It's real estate!"
"We find a house we like, make an offer, the seller counters, we counter back and then we dicker back and forth until one person gets tired , walks away or gives in".
Yeah, not so much.
Stats don't lie.
Last year, homes sold in King County Sold, on average, for a minimum of 98.2% of list price.
Only in December 2013 and January 2014 did that number fall below 98.5%.
So if you are home shopping in the area, and think that $500,000 house is really only worth $425,000, you may be right. Just don't expect to start at $375,000 in the hope of going back and forth (probably a few times) to get where you want to be.
Our market doesn't work like that.
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