Are Some Agents Encouraging Unrealsitic Prices?
Riding the Hawaii real estate market can be a lot like surfing. You don’t get to control the waves, but you sure can control how you are going to deal with them!
Living in Waimea, we have an opportunity to see success and failure up close. There are those who have made great rides out of big waves as well as those who have been capsized by mere ripples. The difference between the two often seems to be their outlook on things. Those of us in the real estate agency business have been watching prices slowly fall as the natural real estate cycle recovers from the last big demand wave. Some are now crying that the market is bad, while others are calmly adjusting to reality.
The truth is that Sellers are asking too much money for their properties right now. It is really just as simple as that. When demand is high, prices rise. When demand slacks, prices fall.
Simple, simple, simple.
The problem is that their are real estate agencies willing to list properties at unrealistic prices. Think about it for a moment … If Sellers dropped prices by, say, 25%, don’t you think lots of those properties would sell? Pick any percentage you like, but the message is the same:
If Sellers adjusted prices to current demand, all properties would sell.
In the same token, if there were no real estate agencies that were willing to list properties at unrealistic prices, there wouldn’t be any over-priced listings.
There are lots of Realtors who made their reputations when selling property was easy and all they had to say to their clients was “Sure, we can try that.” They are still hoping that their lack of skill will work the way it did when rising demand would erase their short-comings.
The way to tell the difference between a good agency and a lousy one today is to offer them an over-priced listing. If they politely say “no” you are in good hands. If they say “Well, we can try that.”, you are probably dealing with someone perpetuating the problem rather than solving it.
Meantime … if you want to get a property at a great price this is the time to do it. We can help you make offers that address the real value of the property rather than the poofy dreams left over from yesterday’s fevered Sellers’ market. Were just a simple “click” away. Try it out.
Imua!
Bill Jardine
Filed under: Updates
Amen!
There are too many agents still taking listings at a price they absolutely cannot sell! Sellers need to be told “No, that price is too high” more often. Then they would have to come down to market damand or sell it themselves (ha!) or admit that the price is too high and that they don’t really expect it to sell. But, they figure since it doesn’t cost them to list the property, why not try it?
Maybe there should be a listing fee if the property doesn’t get any offers in 30 or 60 days? Maybe then they’d be more reasonable and less willing to waste an agent’s time and money (advertising it).
Thanks for letting me vent!
Aloha, Mike
RE/MAX Pacific
Hi Mike, I totally agree with what you say, particularly with regards to urrealistic sellers. We’re trying our best for them and generally they don’t want to listen to where they market is …they want you to “Just try and find that maricle buyer”. For those sellers, that don’t want to follow advise…let’s give them a fair deal, we’ll try it for 30 days, and thereafter should it not sale, we get paid a monthly fee to “keep it on the market”, Bring on the monthly fee!