|
There's no doubt about the fact that the housing market is slowing from the frenzy we saw over the past two years. But what does that mean for you if you're thinking of selling your house?
While home prices are still appreciating and that will continue, they're climbing at a slower pace because rising mortgage rates are creating less Buyer demand. Because of this, there are more homes on the market. And in a shift like this one, the way you price your home matters more than ever.
During the pandemic, Sellers could price their homes higher because demand was so high, and supply was so low. This year, things are shifting, and that means your approach to pricing your house needs to shift too.
As you can see below the bidding wars are cooling down some and the average sales prices compared to the list prices has dropped quite a bit from last month.
Because we're seeing less Buyer demand, Sellers have to recognize this is a different market than it was during the pandemic.
The price you set for your house sends a message to potential Buyers. If you price it too high, you run the risk of deterring Buyers.
When that happens, you may have to lower the price to try to reignite interest in your house when it sits on the market for a while. But be aware that a price drop can be seen as a red flag for some Buyers who will wonder what that means about the home or if in fact it's still overpriced. It also doesn't help you when you finally do get an offer to negotiate because your price is going in the wrong direction.
Here's a recent example that I ran across. I noticed this because I kept seeing this one pop up. In this case, when the price reductions didn't work the Agent withdrew the listing multiple times and relisted it as a new listing to make it look like it had never been on the market before. Problem is that the history of the listing shows up everywhere and Buyers can see it.
They eventually went under contract. It will be interesting to see what the sales price ends up being and whether they had to come down more and got less than they could have because they were chasing the market. You gotta think the Buyer had more leverage than they should've had since we're still in a Sellers' market.
| 
