How to Sell Your House

Shelly, When someone finally accepts one of your lowballs, will you lighten up?

From Fort Walton Beach Mullet Wrapper.

'If you want to sell your house, you have to lower your price,' realtor says
KARI C. BARLOW
2007-04-06

We hear it every day. Northwest Florida?s housing market is stabilizing, returning to normal, slowing to a more reasonable pace.

But what does that really mean? Especially for folks whose ?For Sale? signs have started to grow moss? Or the newlyweds hoping to find a deal?

It means, says broker Richard Bell of Beach Bell Realty, that your price had better be right and your patience intact.

?If I?ve got $400,000 to spend on a house along the Emerald Coast, I?ve got so many choices,? Bell said. ?It?s all about price.?

According to data from the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors, in the fourth quarter of 2006 it would have taken 19.3 months to sell the entire single-family home inventory in the area. It would have taken 54 months to sell all of the condos on the market.

?If you want to sell your house, you have to lower your price,? said Bell, who is based in Atlanta and has experience selling real estate in Northwest Florida. ?Everybody?s got the bells and whistles, but price is that underlying equalizer.?

Early results from the first quarter of 2007 back up his claim.

?We?re seeing a lot of activity on houses that are priced right,? said Ray DiTirro, a Realtor with RE/MAX Southern Realty.

In the fourth quarter of 2006, the average list price for single-family homes was $413,302, and the average sale price was $385,973. So far in 2007, the average list price for single-family homes is $370,594 and the average sale price is $342,064.

When it comes to condos, the market is equally, if not more, crowded, Bell said.

?There?s a huge amount of condos out there,? he said. ?We?re overbuilt, there?s no question about that. We?re waiting for the blood to flow.?

Many condominiums are finally receiving their certificates of occupancy, but Realtors are uncertain about buyers showing up to close the deal.

?There are a lot of people who are just walking away,? DiTirro said. ?They do their cash-flow analysis and they say, ?It?ll cost me less to walk away than to carry this condo.? ?

Well, at least we know how to sell a house now. Just drop the price until someone buys it. I think 2 bohemians has a couple of buyers that would be perfect!!

There are not enough buyers in the current marketplace for everyone to just drop all the prices.

Buyers are coming back into the market at a good pace, but it will still take a while to eat up this inventory even if everyone is priced correctly.

Of course, if you want to sell at 60% of your home's value...you'll probably find a buyer.

"
I would like to thank owner of 417" NOT"

Is this the new going rate for our condos? Why did this owner screw the rest of us by lowering our property values?"

The kicker is...at the end of the month units in the same building sold for $40K more and another sold for $50K more. We were not upset we got to do what we wanted when we needed to do it. I'm sure the new owners of the unit are very pleased! That unit was listed for less than 10 months and we had already turned down three other offers on it.

Here's a reply:


Dear Condo Neighbor,

You had the opportunity to buy that condo for 100K more than the current selling price in order to keep our property values up--but you did not!....it's you who screwed the rest of us by lowering our property values.

PS: You might want to check the elevator cables on your next ride down.


.

I am not sure what this is in regards to. Although, I do disagree with sellers who get mad at other sellers who sell too low. I think it's silly to think that you can dictate the market in that way. :roll:

They were delicious! I'm stuffed 😀

2 couples that were out driving around came through. No serious lookers though. Gave me plenty of time to Sowal!