Current housing market

[k3am]

I'm trying to figure out why the house down the street, that's been on the market since MARCH, was contingent, the sale fell through, it's now back on the market and they just INCREASED the price of the listing by $250k. I'm convinced that it's still on the market because the realtor has had a terrible listing strategy, but I just... don't understand this. Is this kind of thing common elsewhere? (Our housing market in the SF Bay Area has never been typical compared to the rest of the country, so I honestly don't know.)

[aprilsails]

My BIL just bought a house for slightly under $1M. It had been on the market for three months and he managed to talk the sellers down from their original price of $1.275M. That’s a pretty significant decrease. The house needs work, but is in a great location. The major selling point is the amazing landscaping and pool and I think they were beginning to panic since the fall is around the corner and it will not show as well at all in the winter.

[Susie]

Aug 23, 2022 10:53:53 GMT -5 k3am said:

I'm trying to figure out why the house down the street, that's been on the market since MARCH, was contingent, the sale fell through, it's now back on the market and they just INCREASED the price of the listing by $250k. I'm convinced that it's still on the market because the realtor has had a terrible listing strategy, but I just... don't understand this. Is this kind of thing common elsewhere? (Our housing market in the SF Bay Area has never been typical compared to the rest of the country, so I honestly don't know.)

There's a house near me that baffles me.  It's not quite so bad as what you describe, but our market has been really hot during 2021-22.  Anything with 4 beds and 2+ baths in our town spent the majority of its DOM just sorting out multiple offers.  Despite that, this house was:

Listed for sale 10/4/21 for $650k
Listing removed 3/16/22
Listed for sale 4/29/22 for $649,900 
Pending sale 6/16/22
Listed for sale 6/28/22 for $649,900
Currently at 117 DOM.  Still asking $649,900.

It is absolutely priced too high.  New construction in the recent expansion of the same neighborhood has recently sold for $627k, $642k, and $572k, for similar sized homes.  This house is 21 years old, has some disrepair visible in the listing photos (door frames and doors destroyed by a scratching dog), dated circa 2001 finishes, and customizations that I don't think are universally appealing (e.g. laundry room appears to have been converted to a 2nd cooking space, and laundry moved to basement).  It's empty/unoccupied based on listing photos, and would really benefit from a paint job, some cosmetic repairs, and some staging.  

I feel like they would be lucky to get what 6 month comps for existing homes in the same neighborhood have gone for ($555k, $520k, $485k).  There's a comparable new listing this week priced at $472k.  And yet they sit and wait for $650k (and possibly also Godot).  I have it favorited just because I'm so curious to see how it eventually turns out.

[pinkplasticdoll]

Aug 23, 2022 10:53:53 GMT -5 k3am said:

I'm trying to figure out why the house down the street, that's been on the market since MARCH, was contingent, the sale fell through, it's now back on the market and they just INCREASED the price of the listing by $250k. I'm convinced that it's still on the market because the realtor has had a terrible listing strategy, but I just... don't understand this. Is this kind of thing common elsewhere? (Our housing market in the SF Bay Area has never been typical compared to the rest of the country, so I honestly don't know.)

could it be owned by some one like open door or z ill ow? we had a house in our neighborhood that did something similar to this an our friends are buying the house at $100k less than the original price because it was owned by open door and they are desperate to offload. 

[heygrey]

Aug 23, 2022 13:00:50 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

My BIL just bought a house for slightly under $1M. It had been on the market for three months and he managed to talk the sellers down from their original price of $1.275M. That’s a pretty significant decrease. The house needs work, but is in a great location. The major selling point is the amazing landscaping and pool and I think they were beginning to panic since the fall is around the corner and it will not show as well at all in the winter.

This seems to be the trend here too. Houses that were selling for over $1mil are now right at a million or just under. Houses in the $700-800k range are still getting snatched up quickly, but not with the insane all cash, no contingency offers that were happening. 

[k3am]

Aug 24, 2022 22:19:45 GMT -5 pinkplasticdoll said:

Aug 23, 2022 10:53:53 GMT -5 k3am said:

I'm trying to figure out why the house down the street, that's been on the market since MARCH, was contingent, the sale fell through, it's now back on the market and they just INCREASED the price of the listing by $250k. I'm convinced that it's still on the market because the realtor has had a terrible listing strategy, but I just... don't understand this. Is this kind of thing common elsewhere? (Our housing market in the SF Bay Area has never been typical compared to the rest of the country, so I honestly don't know.)

could it be owned by some one like open door or z ill ow? we had a house in our neighborhood that did something similar to this an our friends are buying the house at $100k less than the original price because it was owned by open door and they are desperate to offload. 

It last sold in 2010, so unlikely. 

Their listing looks like this.. 

March 22, list for $XX. (Which.. was WAY too high. A sale price of that price at the time frame wouldn't have been unexpected, but everything here seems to list for ~$200-300k less than they expect to sell it for, which is stupid, but it's the way things are done)
May 22, reduce price by 20%
July 22, contingent offer accepted. 
August 22, back on the market for +12.6%

I'm just.. baffled by this strategy? They couldn't sell it at the original reduced price, I'd expect to see them go the other way and drop it to by 12.6%? I have no idea. They haven't done any work on the house in the interim, so it's definitely not a "we noticed all this stuff was wrong and put in a ton of money to fix it" type scenario either. (It's gone the other way.. no one is living there, the yard isn't being maintained, etc)

[goldengirlz]

Aug 25, 2022 13:10:50 GMT -5 k3am said:

Aug 24, 2022 22:19:45 GMT -5 pinkplasticdoll said:

could it be owned by some one like open door or z ill ow? we had a house in our neighborhood that did something similar to this an our friends are buying the house at $100k less than the original price because it was owned by open door and they are desperate to offload. 

It last sold in 2010, so unlikely. 

Their listing looks like this.. 

March 22, list for $XX. (Which.. was WAY too high. A sale price of that price at the time frame wouldn't have been unexpected, but everything here seems to list for ~$200-300k less than they expect to sell it for, which is stupid, but it's the way things are done)
May 22, reduce price by 20%
July 22, contingent offer accepted. 
August 22, back on the market for +12.6%

I'm just.. baffled by this strategy? They couldn't sell it at the original reduced price, I'd expect to see them go the other way and drop it to by 12.6%? I have no idea. They haven't done any work on the house in the interim, so it's definitely not a "we noticed all this stuff was wrong and put in a ton of money to fix it" type scenario either. (It's gone the other way.. no one is living there, the yard isn't being maintained, etc)

We see this quite a bit, also in the Bay Area/SV and this is our theory:

We know houses are often priced artificially low to spark bidding wars. But when the bidding war fails to materialize — or doesn’t go high enough — they re-list with the price they WANT to get. Why? Not entirely sure of the psychology there, but it’s sometimes in the listing that that’s the price they’ll take.

For the homes we follow, often they do end up getting their new price or right below it.

ETA: But if this house had a contingent offer, it sounds like they did get a price they liked. And now the market has cooled, so they’re just asking for what that other offer was. This is all just speculation obviously ha. I’ve bought a house here but haven’t sold.

[dutchgirl678]

Aug 25, 2022 21:28:18 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

Aug 25, 2022 13:10:50 GMT -5 k3am said:

It last sold in 2010, so unlikely. 

Their listing looks like this.. 

March 22, list for $XX. (Which.. was WAY too high. A sale price of that price at the time frame wouldn't have been unexpected, but everything here seems to list for ~$200-300k less than they expect to sell it for, which is stupid, but it's the way things are done)
May 22, reduce price by 20%
July 22, contingent offer accepted. 
August 22, back on the market for +12.6%

I'm just.. baffled by this strategy? They couldn't sell it at the original reduced price, I'd expect to see them go the other way and drop it to by 12.6%? I have no idea. They haven't done any work on the house in the interim, so it's definitely not a "we noticed all this stuff was wrong and put in a ton of money to fix it" type scenario either. (It's gone the other way.. no one is living there, the yard isn't being maintained, etc)

We see this quite a bit, also in the Bay Area/SV and this is our theory:

We know houses are often priced artificially low to spark bidding wars. But when the bidding war fails to materialize — or doesn’t go high enough — they re-list with the price they WANT to get. Why? Not entirely sure of the psychology there, but it’s sometimes in the listing that that’s the price they’ll take.

For the homes we follow, often they do end up getting their new price or right below it.

ETA: But if this house had a contingent offer, it sounds like they did get a price they liked. And now the market has cooled, so they’re just asking for what that other offer was. This is all just speculation obviously ha. I’ve bought a house here but haven’t sold.

Something similar happened here (PDX suburbs). A house near us was listed for $999,800 on 4/7. Went pending on 4/13. Somehow it must have fallen through because it was back on the market on 6/17 for $1,050,000. They reduced the price to $1,000,000 on 8/3 and it is still not sold. It is a beautiful house from 2020 with 3300sq ft. It is a corner lot but you can see into their yard from the sidewalk and they are working on extending a roadway which will increase traffic right next to their house quite a bit. There is a whole new neighborhood that is going to be built nearby in the next few years and with a big high school nearby I foresee a lot of school bus and other traffic coming through.