When Should You Reduce Your Price? March 21st, 2008

Categories: For Sellers

Something dawned on me late last night.  I know the light usually comes on in the morning but yesterday was backwards. What dawned on me is that some sellers haven’t gotten the word that they need to lower their price.   Last night at 11:30 PM I finished an 8 hour run of 3 BPOs. A BPO is a Brokers Price Opinion requested by a lender.

I noticed when going through the comparable properties that many people do not reduce their price even when their home has been on the market for a long time.  One home had been on the market more than 500 days at the same price.  Several had been at the same price for more than six months.

Buyers are the ultimate determiners of price.  Just because an appraiser, or a Realtor, or the borough thinks it has a certain value…that is almost meaningless.  It’s the buyers who call the shots.

Buyers are buying houses, every week, actually every day.  They are looking at a lot of houses before they make an offer on one.  When they find one they like they will make an offer.  By the time a buyer is ready to commit, he knows if the house is priced right or not.  Likely he won’t even bother to write an offer if the price isn’t close to where it should be.

So if you are in a hurry to sell, you should price it very competitively from the beginning.  Then you should set up a schedule of price reductions if you don’t get an offer right away.

Depending on your price range, and your urgency in selling you should make your first reduction after 30 days.  If you aren’t getting any showings at all your reduction should be at least 5%.  If you are getting some showings but no one is talking about an offer you might try 1/2 of that or so.  That still means a reduction of  $7,500 for a $250,000 home. 

Then you should evaluate your price every 30 days after that.  If you are getting showings, you are at least close to the price.  But if you aren’t getting offers, you are still too high.

Some houses are definitely priced right.  Just in the past week I have dealt with two offers for more than the asking price, and one that was right on the price.  These properties were priced right and they sold.  One of them had 4 different buyers competing for it. 

The market is active, if your house isn’t active…IT’S THE PRICE!

Written by Marty Van Diest 4 Comments »

Monday Market Memo for March 17, 2008 March 17th, 2008

Categories: Wasilla Real Estate News

Wasilla Real Estate News real estate statistics for Palmer, Wasilla, and the Mat-Su Borough.

Here is the market update for the week of March 10–17, 2008.  We have topped 700 listings for the first time since mid-December.  We will likely see listings increase over the next couple months

If you click on the chart to the right above, you will see a running tally of listings, pendings and closings since January of 2007.   You can see that pendings are starting to climb while closings are still lumbering along at a steady pace.

I anticipate to see closings begin to climb a little in the next couple of weeks.  Let’s watch and see.

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Deal of the Week March 11th, 2008

Categories: Deals of the Week

The is the DEAL of the week. 

I’ll be surprised if this isn’t sold by the end of the week.  This foreclosure just hit the market today.  It is 1885 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths and a one car garage just off of Seldon Road..

It is $185,000 for a foreclosure in surprisingly good shape with new carpet and new vinyl.  It has a fireplace, living room and separate laundry room. 

Call me at 232–7900 if you would like good directions to the house or if you would like to view it.

It is listed with Lee Mitchell of RE/MAX of Wasilla.

Written by Marty Van Diest Please leave a comment.

Monday Market Memo for 3/10/08 March 11th, 2008

Categories: Monday Market Memo

Wasilla Real Estate News market statistics for the week of March 3–10, 2008.  These statistics include the whole Matanuska-Susitna Borough, including Wasilla, Palmer,Houston, Sutton, Willow, Talkeetna and the rest of the outlying areas.

However, most of the real estate activity is in Wasilla and Palmer.

As the chart shows, we had more new listings this past week than at any time since the beginning of the year.  The spring rush has started.   We should see many more new listings come on the market in the next couple months.

We also had the most pendings for the year this past week.  For that reason, our total inventory only grew by five.  Our absorption rate remains pretty steady.  In fact if we were to keep the average amount of pendings at 40 per month, we would soon be in a sellers market again.

We only had 18 closings because these are homes that went into contract during the slower month of February.  We should see the closings soon come up close to the pending number.

Buyers should pay attention to the fact that the total inventory is down from last year, sales are steady so I don’t expect to see much of a drop in house prices.  Houses over $300,000 are still selling slower than and they have to be competitively priced to sell.

I attended an Alaska Housing Finance Corporation seminar this past week at the Lake Lucille Inn.  It was an interesting meeting.  The consensus was that values for the past year increased in the Valley by about 2%.  The real estate market was still healthy in Mat-Su with a steady market. 

The outlook for the 2008 appears to be fairly solid, there are several large projects that are bringing more people into the valley.  The Target store, a new 1,500 person prison and other smaller business show that the Valley continues to grow. 

In fact, the vacancy rate for apartments is only 3%.  That means the rental market is basically at capacity.  As the valley continues to grow, it will likely need more places for these renters to stay.

Jess Hall, of Hall Quality Homes, spoke at the seminar.  His business is still running at close to capacity because of his foresight in purchasing land for development in central areas.  He mentioned that housing starts are running at about 50% of what they were in 2005.  He expects that to continue and feels that is a healthy rate of new housing.  Construction costs are increasing and he expects new construction prices to increase by summer to match the cost of cement, copper, and all the other materials. 

Interest rates remain low.  They are as low as they have been for the past 40 years.  We have become used to the rates in the 6% range, but many of us in the industry remember the days of 12% mortgages only too well.  I have a copy of an article somewhere write during those days that said we will never again see single digit mortgage rates. 

If you would like a copy of my motivated sellers list, read this post and drop me a line.

Written by Marty Van Diest 3 Comments »

Foreclosures, Short Sales, Relocations, Fixer-Uppers, Divorce Sales March 7th, 2008

Categories: Deals of the Week

MOTIVATED SELLERS

In Wasilla, Palmer and the Mat-Su Valley

On Monday I mentioned that I would add a feature showing the foreclosed properties.  I intended to just add a link to all the foreclosures that I could find on the MLS system.  But…I discovered that would be against MLS rules so I have done something even better.

In a previous article I noted that foreclosures are not always the best deals on the market.  In fact, foreclosures usually sell for exactly what they are worth.  You can read that article here.

Still, foreclosures are usually priced below the other similar sized houses and for the right person they can be a good deal.  Even better deals can sometimes be found.  These can be relocation properties where a holding company does not want to sit on a vacant house, or they can be divorce sales where a judge orders the sale of a property.

So I have gone through the MLS one by one and come up with 42 listings that meet the criteria of the title.  These properties will absolutely be sold.  In fact, most of them will likely be sold fairly quickly. 

It is against the MLS rules for me to just post these 42 properties on my website.  I am only supposed to give this information to people I am working with, so I have come up with a way to do that.

All you need to do is drop me a note via email.  Mention Motivated Sellers in the body of the email, include your name and phone number and I will email the list to you.  Just click here to email me. 

This list will be done weekly to keep you up to date with these motivated sellers.  There is no way to do an automated search for these types of properties because it requires me to read through each listing for clues. 

Written by Marty Van Diest 14 Comments »