Home Owners Are Buying Their Homes Back

It’s happened again and again to us and our fellow Realtors this week. Buyers have made legitimate offers only to have them rejected by sellers that are pricing their properties too high in hopes the price will attract a higher offer. These sellers are, in effect, buying their homes back from serious qualified buyers.

Many Buyers Are Walking Away from Counter-offers

Negotiating the sales price of a home and the other contract details used to be a back and forth process that might go through several counter-offers. What we’re seeing more and more of these days is a buyer making a serious, considered offer that is being countered by a seller in hope of getting the buyer to meet them halfway, but the buyer, knowing the market is full of good deals, is just walking away from the counter-offer.

Sellers Are in a Race Against Time

What home sellers need to realize is that they are in a race against time. The more time that passes, the more the market drops. In this market, sellers need to consider every offer as if it will be the only offer they get. Pricing at the market value in a shifting market is is really over-pricing. Sellers need to price ahead of the market and in this market that means lower not higher.

The Waiting Game is a Money Losing Game

We must have talked to 30 to 40 sellers in 2007 that were going to wait until 2008 to sell in hopes of getting a better price. Those sellers are wishing they had sold last year. This year, we’re running into even more buyers gambling on improvement next year. Is anyone watching the news these days? The impact of this economic turmoil is going to take at least two more years to work out in mot real estate markets.

A Tale of Two Markets

What we are seeing these days is the tale of two markets. Homes priced to sell and homes priced to sit. 80% of homes currently on the market are priced to sit. The 20% of homes that are priced to sell are getting multiple offers.

Sellers are either in the market or out of the market. Everyday that passes in this market pushes an overpriced home farther and farther out of the market.