Cut price to sell...too hard a concept?
"......Even markets that were considered relatively stable are bloated with unsold homes.
'People were telling me Boston and Seattle were OK,' said Morgan, who recently visited both cities. 'I've got news for those folks. They aren't OK.'.........."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home
'People were telling me Boston and Seattle were OK,' said Morgan, who recently visited both cities. 'I've got news for those folks. They aren't OK.'.........."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home
Comments
Sure any house will sell for $1, but the hard part for sellers is finding a fair market price. The same buyers who will nix a house due to lack of staging or a hair in the sink are the ones who will not consider any house that's not "new on market", even if its price has dropped to 75% of the price of comparables. So lowering the price doesn't always work to find a fair market price. Sometimes it's better that the sellers take the house off the market and relist it later for a lower price, so they don't have to sell the house for far below the fair market price.
And of course the bubble itself shows that selling is not all about price.
Any credibility you might have had is now lost. Next you're going to tell us that people are still making money flipping houses because you saw it on "Flip this House" and that none of the "Real Housewives of Orange County" had boob jobs.
That's a peculiar assertion. Would you care to expand on how ultra low interest rates, mystical refi's, and the promise of ever increasing prices played no roll in the housing bubble?
But thinking it through...
Perhaps the invention of granite countertops and sub-zero freezers in 2001 causes a whirlwind of buying activity as people who previously had no interest in home ownership (and therefore must have been geeks living in their parent's basement) ran out, got married, found high paying tech jobs, moved to Seattle, and bought homes.
Otherwise no one could "afford", it at current prices.
If it is true that "over half of buyers" will not consider a 25% savings just because of a lack of something as superficial as staging, then this society is in more trouble than I thought!
Markor - you wouldn't happen to do staging as part of your livlihood, would you?
You cannot put lipstick on a pig and expect it to fly. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. It's only the some of the people, that many mistake for all of them now. The question is, how is that working for ya?
Note, '=>' means 'implies' in logic and '^' means 'AND' in logic.
1) axioms of economics
a) Rational Buyer => Buys At Lowest Cost.
b) Rational Seller => Sells At Highest Price.
2) common sense
a) Rational Buyer => Examines Purchase For [Damage|Fraud|Errors]
3) Markor Statements
a) Staging a House => 25% Higher Sales Price
b) Staging a House => Picky buyers => Request an Inspection.
3a implies that a rational seller will stage a house. But 3b implies that will attract buyers who want inspections. Which 2a defines as rational buyers, which are the kinds of buyers who purchase at a lower price.
Sorry Markor, but you've got a contradiction.
No logical contradiction in my statements. I didn't say that I think buyers will pay more for a staged home. Your #3a is not my statement. Staging can help a seller, but I don't think the cost is worth it.
Take an extreme example. Suppose the seller pukes on the kitchen floor just before an open house. Should the seller leave the puke or clean it up? A rational buyer should be delighted to see the puke because it could mean a significant price reduction and keep other buyers away. What percentage of buyers will leave in disgust? I'd guesstimate over 90%. And it's a safe bet that none of the remaining buyers will be delighted. So the seller should clean up the puke. And that makes my point that selling is not all about price. Most buyers are not rational.
You're quite right. I'll avoid anything logical in the future. Hurrah!
RCC - We must try not to bore or offend Markor in any way.
You should also cut out all those graphs and charts then. Nothing against them, but compared to 'going by the gut' all that work you put in sure has way too much information.
I'm sorry, but your posts really did conflict with each other. First you exaggerated the extent to which buyers will foolishly throw money at the smallest staging (can of paint or something). Then you claimed that all this free money was not worth pursuing because it might be some work.
Meanwhile, you pulled numbers out of...I don't know where.
-Any staging at all will pull in an extra 25%. Really?
-Over half of all buyers will not consider a house which wasn't staged. Will they consider a stage which isn't enclosed?
-Houses are not price sensitive. Wha?!?
-A house on the market 2 months can't sell even with a 75% price drop. Did the tobacco companies do that study??
-90% of buyers will avoid purchasing houses brimming in puke. Well, I'll give you that one.
You can't make numbers up, form assertions on them, and then expect everyone to stand around nodding like that bird that drinks water.
Happy Thanksgiving.
There's no free money. If a house is fairly priced at $x and more than half of buyers will not consider it if it's not staged, it will eventually sell for $x to one of the buyers who doesn't need staging. Staging buys liquidity; it doesn't necessarily bring in a higher price.
Huh?
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that either.
See, no evidence needed. Apparently opinions are okay unless you disagree with them.
I didn't expect you to agree with me.
If selling is not all about price, selling can still be somewhat or even mostly about price.
If the price has dropped to 75% of the price of comparables, it's a 25% price drop, not a 75% price drop.
Ooops, that one I truly apologize for. I understood you meant a 25% drop (which makes way more sense than 75% anyways), and that's what I meant to type. I think I had just read 75% and typed a '7' instead of a '2' accidentally. I'm sorry I misrepresented what you said.