WOW! I got some great comments on that one! And a real education (thank you to everyone who commented and for teaching me more about pricing). Based on all that I went forth and got some more information about our market here in Alberta.
To refresh your memory, a friend (and her soon to be ex) is selling her house but after 80 days, 2 price reductions, lots of showings and no offers, her Realtor wants her to lower her price again. She hesitates and wants to Stage the house first then lower the price.
With that aside, the market is the strangest it has ever been in years, especially compared to the feverish sellers' market we experienced last year. The best selling months have passed and qualified buyers are getting fewer and fewer. For instance, we are a fairly major military town and usually see hundreds of new families arrive every spring and summer. A Realtor I know who handles hundreds of military relocations this time of year is handling only 6. No one is moving, no one is buying. Activity has definitely stalled.
Last week, I treated my two favourite Realtors to lunch. I Stage a lot of their listings and wanted to say 'thank you', plus I realized I needed to know more about what was happening in the market so I could represent and serve them better. Through them, I got a very clear picture on how pricing plays a vital role in a market that is changing daily. For instance, for every one of their potential listings, they provide a marketing plan with a current analysis whereby they compare the house to relatively similar houses that have sold in the area. What they found, as an example, was that the last house of similar size and location sold back in March and isn't even comparable anymore to the current market conditions. Houses could be listed at $20,000 - $30,000 more two months ago but they had to be HOT properties and they had to look GOOD coming out of the gates. If they didn't sell then they certainly won't now, especially at that 'new' listing price.
So now, only months later, prices are indeed coming down by 10's of thousands of dollars, and swallowing that pill was hard for me and I am not a seller.
We've all met sellers who have decided that their house is worth a certain amount, which may be based on market awareness or may simply be based on an emotional and physical attachment to the home. Either way, being aware of the daily conditions in a market such as this will save the seller of lot of aggravation. And hey some of us need to find things out the hard way.
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