What is my home worth today?

If you listen to any news about the housing market, you know it has slowed. Is this a permanant thing? How is the price of my home affected? I have had several friends say to me, "I missed it, I know I should have sold last year".

Two things are going on in the market that have affected conditions. First, I think in many cases prices have reached a point where buyers are searching longer, harder and wiser for the property they want. This may in turn have caused the inventory levels to rise a bit, hence the increase in available properties. Properties are not selling anywhere near as fast and sellers are starting to get impatient. I am seeing two things because of this. Some sellers have recently withdrawn their properties from the market. They have told me that it will be better in the spring. Others have reduced pricing to a more realistic level. If you haven't seen it, there have been price adjustments in many markets. Sellers need to get a bit more real and that is their agents job, but a hard sell. If you want to sell your home in 30 days you have to price it competitively. You cannot check out the highest comparable sale and price your home a lot higher, it won't work. It may have worked when there was no inventory, but the competition has grown dramatically. My advice is be realistic, look at your home from a buyers eye not a sellers eye and then ask what would I pay for this property compared to others that are selling in my market area.

The second major cause of this little stall, may just be seasonal. This time of year is traditionally very slow,but the buyers that are in the market are usually not tire kickers.

The below link takes you to an interesting article from the National Association of Realtors. It talks about housing that is under contract but not yet settled.

http://www.realtor.org/publicaffairsweb.nsf/Pages/OctPHS2005

As always, feel free to contact me personally at 410-507-2909 if you have any real estate related questions.