Tumbling
Posted on January 24, 2007 - Filed Under Housing |
Lately, the MLS has been on my browser quite often. Rather than read some newspaper, telling me what to think I’ve delved into the data; trying to get a feel for what is happening in my immediate area.
During my meanderings, I stumbled across one listing.
It was listed 9/17/2007 at $860,000. Today, it’s listed at $775,000. Within a four month time span, the asking price has dropped nearly $100,000.
Is that what desperation smells like?
The accuracy of Zillow is still in question. But it’s usefulness as a barometer, regarding housing values, provides a decent "z-estimate". I found it interesting that 6 houses in that same area, same size were averaged at $735,000.
People’s opinion, regarding houses that stay on the market too long, seem to point to the same question: What’s wrong with it? The question going through my mind with this listing is: Does the seller and agent have a clue as to what’s going on?
From my standpoint, I’d rather keep the property and the $100,000 rather than just try to offload it.
Yes, there could be any number of reasons. Divorce or maybe it’s an inherited piece of property.
Curiosity states I must keep tabs on this one.
If you liked that post, then try these...
Perceptions on August 17th, 2005
Yesterday, the assistant to the real estate agent and myself went to the houses.
On the plate on July 16th, 2007
The next few weeks should bring some exciting changes to the house.
Comments
6 Responses to “Tumbling”
Leave a Reply
There was an article in Business Week not too long ago that warned buyers to beware of unethical agents who delist and then immediately relist properties. This is a rather obvious attempt to get around the whole “days on the market” problem for houses that aren’t selling.
Most of the various agencies that govern local MLS services frown on this practice, but from time to time some wiley agent will get away with it. Just another reason to keep your eyes open.
mOOm said on “Moomin Valley”:
There are four main types of leverage available in the stock-market:
Margin loans: let you borrow 50-70% of the value of the stock.
Options: let you borrow almost all of it effectively if you are dumb enough to buy really out of money options
Futures: let you borrow between 90 and 95% of the money.
Then there are leveraged mutual funds which typically borrow about 50%.
Besides this, there are low and high beta stocks. High beta stocks move much more with the market for good or bad than low beta stocks.
So try words like:
“margin loan”
futures,margin
“leveraged mutual fund”
in Google and see what happens.
Engineer, I’m uncertain why this practice is unethical. When I re-list the first two houses, should I start at day 32?
Moom, thanks for the info. I’m definitely going to look it up.
I don’t think you need to relist the houses two years from now and include those 32 days in your count. The delist/relist practice refers more to a house that’s been on the market for 6 months, taken off the MLS on Monday and then put back on Tuesday for the express purpose of restarting the clock. Doesn’t that sound like the agent is blatently trying to hide the total time that the his/her house has been on the market? Sounds unethical to me.
Most likely the listing was overpriced to start with. I’m looking at houses with 200k drops and they still aren’t priced right.
Engineer, I guess I don’t get how the delisting/relisting is unethical. If the argument is based on a fact that an agent is trying to hide something, then every commercial on tv would be unethical. Everyone is always hiding something when they sell a product. There are negatives to everything.
Ken, I found another MLS where the price was reduced $150k over 3 months. Your statement is correct about being overpriced. I started wondering if these people believed they were entitled to ask for a large amount rather than find out what their true market value was.