Right on. I would label the agent all of those ‘cept maybe stoopid.. :)

The underlying theme that I was trying to get to, in a roundabout way was…

With rising inventory, and the market about to do what we are all predicting., who is going to put aside their dollar- sign dreams and realize the benefit of adjusting their asking price, getting it sold and getting out of a tanking market at the FOREFRONT? (vs languishing in a larger and larger pool of homes for sale)

The “lesson” of the bubble market I just came from was that the seller who was out ot fhe market in the forefront had better returns vs. those who chose to hold out for what their neighbor had sold thier house for the prior year (in better times)……

Try this one:

http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=48943091

Purchased in May of 2005 for 865K. They tried selling last year with no luck. Now it’s STI with a listing price of 899K. Even if they got their asking price, they will lose money on this house after factoring in transaction fees, interest, taxes, inflation and possibly maintenance & insurance. This house also happens to have a spectacular view of Elliott Bay, downtown Seattle and Mt Rainier from the Southern edge of Magnolia.

Maybe. I’ve noticed the most price decreases and short sales on the lower end of the scale in the zip code I’m following. But it’s slowly been creeping upward since the start of the year, the latest being a bunch of new construction in the 400-550K range about 5%.

seller’s agents have an incentive to convince the seller to reduce their price. they get most of their income from volume, not price. 3% of $500k is pretty "golly" close to 3% of $450k, so why would they work an extra month to try to sell for the higher price?

buyer’s agents have an small incentive to convince you to pay more and a strong incentive to convince you to buy just about anything at any price as quickly as possible. this maximizes their income per hour worked.

so, seasoned, wise, greedy, or stupid, your agent could have just been responding to the incentives of her job.

this was covered in some detail in freakonomics.

it is a pretty good argument for why both buyer’s and seller’s agents offer plenty of advice that should be completely ignored.

steve-o said,
It just occurred to me that the first two Active Listings charts from yesterdays posts will have to be re-sized. The first chart – YtY % change of active listings – only goes up to +55%. Looks like you’ll have to up to +70%!. The second chart – Total numbers of active listings – only goes up to 12,000. Maybe that one should go up to 15,000?

Tim’s number are just for SFH – so he’s probably fine… for now!

I think we could see 13-14k SFH just in KingCo this year.

I’ll have a post on how many houses get “delisted” in a few days. I’ve got the numbers going back a number of years.

Thanks

On the other hand, there are still a bunch of sellers with their amateur-hour shelter-brokers(R) who are too dim to realize that low, low, bargain-basement prices are what move houses in a downturn, not wishful thinking. So maybe there is a window of opportunity to competitively price new construction, and steal the lunch from private sellers who are still trying to make money over the 2004 prices.

So maybe moreso, it’s got to suck to be a housing broker (R) right now. Few transactions, and plus your entire line of work is a sham based on information asymmetry. The builders will recover in a few years, but used-house-salesmen might never have a reputable name again. Life can be harsh!

I am told that the Phoenix area has had inventory as high as 50k. I don’t know if that figure encompasses more than one county.

It’s been interesting to see the number of homes that have gone contingent, then back to active. I’ve also noticed places come back due to the buyer’s financing falling though. There are clearly people looking and some trying to buy, just judging by the number of people I almost tripped over last weekend touring houses with their realtors. But, as the numbers illustrate, financing has gotten more difficult to obtain for those unprepared, and there is overall a bit more rationality returning.

I expect that with the number of new construction townhouses and condos that are going to hit the market over the coming months, inventry is almost certain to climb quite a bit more well though the spring.

Our listing agent was one of those smart, seasoned, no-nonsense women who had been through these drastic corrections before. She told me I was pricing way too high. She really pissed me off at the time.

But ya know, as a seller, I was only looking at the past sales in my neighborhood and seeing big $$ signs. I think I was only latching on to that part of it and just skimming over any news that there was a correction going on. But she knew what was in the air.

As a seasoned agent, I guess she made the decision to FLOW with the market conditions, not try to AFFECT them (the way I see agents here doing in response to the market conditions). Instead of looking for the huge payout from what were becoming less frequent sales, she put here effort into persuading her clients to “price to sell”– SOON!. She chose to make her money on VOLUME. I get it now.

I like that she didn’t waste her time or possible income for one minute “towing the line” for the local real estate market. She is a survivor because of it.

We eventually sold our home for about 13% less than we had it originally listed. But thank god we sold it then. Things continued to worsen in the state as inventory continued to climb, the median home vaules falling. And now — the inventory is just sitting there. We were lucky to get out when we did as today, buyers are few and far between.

Scuba Steve said,

I’m not sure why so many fall off the listings… either the owners decided they didn’t want to move after all or maybe they found a renter?

I’ve heard that a good number of sellers are “move up” sellers. Looking to get their “equity” out and use it to buy something bigger / nicer. I know when my wife and I were out looking, we found a few people who’d just got a raise, etc.. and we’re looking for a bigger place.

Those folks can afford to stay where they are if they don’t get the price they want….

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all comes out in the next week or two. My information for a particular area goes back through when I started keeping track of it in early November. Included are a lot of items that have gone off the market unsold for one reason or another right around the end of the year. I’ve seen a few come back last weekend when I checked so more will probably start popping back up again.

I’m not sure why so many fall off the listings… either the owners decided they didn’t want to move after all or maybe they found a renter?

S Crow says the low rates are leading to mortgages/refi’s flying off the shelves. I have to believe most of them are refi’s. Probably people trying to convert to a fixed rate.

Ray: it’s funny you said in yesterday’s post that you don’t like charts/numbers. I started reading this blog after you sent me midyear sales numbers six months ago. See you tonight at basketball?