Greenville Real Estate Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

Folks, today's sellers' market is not for the faint-hearted. So many people are trying to at least break even when they sell their home - especially those who have purchased in the past 5 years or have upgraded their house recently; breaking even has become increasingly difficult with every passing week. Today's buyer does not care what you "absolutely must have" as your take-away; they're only interested in the best home for the least cost to them.

Nowadays, many dedicated sellers are biting the bullet and accepting that offer, even if it means bringing money to the closing to just get out of the house and its mortgage. Others are withdrawing their listings altogether after that first lowball offer.

I know my business. I study the market, keep abreast of what's happening, and market your home with that in mind. That's what you’re hiring me for. I don't use fluffy words and extravagant praise when I get to a listing presentation - I'm not buying your home, and my personal opinion doesn't matter. I'm there to make an assessment and give my professional advice. I've always been straightforward (sometimes to my detriment) and tell it like it is; I always try hard - sometimes, perhaps too aggressively - to prepare my sellers for reality, but it's not always easy.

• Some sellers totally understand what's happening in today’s market, and they understand it’s only going to get worse. They take the advice they're paying me for and price their home to sell as quickly as possible.


• Others list with me but don't want to accept the truth they'll come to realize in future weeks: they priced their home too high to begin with, and now they've got a property that's been on the market for months and months - or years; a house identified by the public and Realtors as providing too little bang for the buck. It's hard for a seller to make up for those two strikes.


• Still others refuse to list with me after my presentation, feeling hurt or insulted that I've suggested such a low price for their "beautiful" home. They'd rather list with someone who tells them what they want to hear instead of the truth. (Surprisingly, I've had several of them come back to me months later, asking me to take their listings because the "other" agents didn't have any success.)

My goal has always been is to get the most amount of money for my seller, in the least amount of time, with the least amount of stress. In today's market, you really have to balance those three items much more carefully than in the past - especially the money and time portions. Days on the market (DOM) is one of the first things buyers ask about. If a seller doesn't price it right to begin with, the time needed to sell the home has a way of quadrupling. Each seller has to decide how to balance the equation for himself.

However, every seller must realize that there's a time bomb ticking away in the background. The "time" part of the equation is running out. Why? Because more and more homes are being sold as short sales and foreclosures. Every time one of those is sold at a discount in your neighborhood or in your price range, your home decreases in value. The market is being flooded with great deals that buyers are snapping up. And experts have been saying for months that it's going to take until the end of 2012 for the market to hit its low, and we won't see any sort of increase or appreciation until 2016.

Bottom line? Your house will sell... eventually. But if you don't get out of it soon, it's going to take much, much longer and bring in even less money with every month you wait. The clock is ticking.

Yours in smiles,
Abbey

Posted at 02:07PM Mar 17, 2011 by Abbey Turner in Real Estate  |  Comments[0]