In the 2+ weeks we have been on the market we have had very heavy traffic at open houses (100+ people), several showings, a few repeat showings, and hints of eminent offers - but so far it is only hype - I think people are either not buying right now, afraid to offer, and/or are waiting for the first price reduction.

We priced at the low end of the sold comps to generate more interest and are the best positioned home in our price range currently.

We are in one of the areas where prices have dropped but the prices are still high - Northern California/Bay Area.

SW Florida, home on the market almost 1 month.. one showing last week, and buyer's were preparing to make an offer! The next day, the went to another house in same development, a builder's model, and he sold the house furnished, so to them, that was a better deal (it was a good deal). Property is selling in our development and new houses are being built... it was NO activity for 2 1/2 yrs, so we defiantly see things starting to get a pulse back. Hope it stays that way.

On market ~7 wks. No activity first 3 wks. Dropped price 5%, and have been getting about 1 showing per weekend now. No bites.

Realtor says traffic has been exceptionally low across all their properties. Also tells us that within a 7 mile radius (boston suburbs), there are ~300 homes listed in our same price range. Too much inventory, not enough buyers.

We've been on the market over a year! I'm currently getting one showing every couple of months! It's ridiculously bad. Our home is very nice, but we are competing against so many foreclosures and rock bottom sellers that we can't even get many showings. :-( Since we don't have to move, we aren't willing to give our home away. We are not going to relist when our contract comes up. Going to give it a rest and then sign with a different firm.

We've been on the market for 4 months. In the first 3 months, we had 3 showings. We dropped the price $20K and have had 4 since then. Everyone "loves" our house but no offers yet--nothing even close. The market here, outside of Richmond, VA is beyond lethargic. There are still job losses so while people are looking, no one is buying. However, my builder just sold his house for about $600K--go figure.

And I thought my market was bad...

We've been on the market for 5 months. We've had about 20 showings. SInce the beginning of August we've had 4, 3 of them after recently dropping the price. It was slow for a couple of weeks around Labor Day. Our agent has said that for our area we are getting a lot of showings though.

Slow! We've been on the market 3 months and had one showing.They loved our house, but decided the area was not what they wanted. We are an upper end home on quite a bit of acreage so it will take a certain type of buyer. But, there are several comps in our area that have been on the market 2 years and no sales, so it is not looking good. We don't have to sell either, but it would be nice to get a little more interest.

Slower than slow here in mid Kansas~~ Two showings the first week of listing and none since then....been 2 months! We lowered the price $22,100 last week OUCH!...and still nothing. We don't have to sell, that is one good thing, but we have bought a lot in another city and really want to build there. I can't see anything improving until next spring. We might just take it off of the market in 4 months when the contract runs out and relist then, Our home is in the "upper" price range for this military town and things are really slow if you can't sell a house in the $149,000 range so they can afford them.
I know it gets very discouraging...or at least, it is for me. I lose all interest in keeping it in "show ready" condition all of the time. Maybe I should just go ahead and do messy projects and then someone is sure to want to see it~~

Been on the market for 2 weeks and NOTHING...not ONE showing!! I'm depressed and exhausted. My poor kids have one tiny box of toys and our homeschool materials consist of a handful of books and the computer. What is so infuriating is that two of my neighbors had contracts in less than a month (one set to close on the 30th) and the other two listings have had several showings. Honestly, my house looks better than the other 4 so I'm stumped. Anyway, I'm already thinking about what we do if we don't sell within a year. Guess that deck on the back might just be built...

Hang in there. It is a slow time.

Jane

I have a home for sale in Bowie MD, a DC suburb. There are over 300 single family homes for sale in the same town. I have lowered the price twice in the last 3 months, and still can't get anybody to even come look at the house. My agent held an open house this weekend, and had zero visits. I've had 10 viewings, and 3 of those were other real estate agents scoping out the competition.
My agent is telling me there are buyers out there, but very few, and they are being very picky. She is suggesting that I make some pretty major upgrades and then lower the price!
About the only houses selling are foreclosures and short sales, and they are selling for at least 20% lower than non-foreclosures.

zilch, nada, zero, baby!

Probably most similar to Kat's Meow...

We've been on the market since mid-July and are now at showing #28 with no offer. We did a 3% price reduction this week since the house 2 doors down sold which is pretty comparable to ours.

I should be thrilled we are getting so many showings but I've never gone this many without an offer. I'm "over" not being able to "live" in my house...

28 showings and NO OFFERS is a very simple problem to fix..LOWER THE PRICE...a 3% reduction is really a waste of time,take it to the level where you can get out, and stop the nonsense...

With hindsight it is easy to say we were priced too high at the start. At the time...not so easy. We told our agent clearly -- in meetings and email -- that we wanted to sell quickly, did not want to price too high and that selling quicker was more important than getting the highest price. She understood what we wanted. She recommended a price that -- in retrospect -- was too high. She showed me comps that seemed to support it.

Looking back at it now (we've been list almost 6 months) I think that one critical piece of data that she didn't look at it was how long it took for the comps to sell (mostly over a year, some over two). That said, we did appear to be listing within comps.

We did reduce our price and are now a little more than 10% lower than our original price. Showing slowed for the first few weeks of September but then we just had 2 showings this week. 5 people have looked since we lowered the price to the current price (which is a very good price based upon comps). 4 have said they don't like floor plan (had a long thread about that), 1 hasn't given feedback yet.

The thing is that not much seems to be selling. I went recently and looked up the comps I had when the house was listed and when I check comps a few months ago. This are sales this year. They haven't sold. So it isn't like someone looks at my house and then buys the house 2 streets over. Those aren't selling either.

This is also new territory for the real estate agents. They are basically playing it by ear. Most of them haven't seen market conditions like this in their career.

It's such a shame to see houses priced too high from the start...it makes it much more difficult to sell the house.

The house down the street had a listing price the same as ours when we bought it one year ago...I don't know what their REA was thinking. Our house has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths (including an actual master suite), is 1800 sq ft. with a true second floor and 10' ceilings, remodeled kitchen, etc.

Their house is 2 bedrooms, one bath. The upstairs is basically a converted attic. It's only 1200 sq ft. The inside is very nice and well taken care of (The guy was a sub-contractor), but...for the REA to look at our house as a comp and price their house the same as ours was a year ago...I don't know what he/she was thinking

It's only been a couple weeks and they already reduced it by 6%. Now they missed out on that first few weeks of activity. What a shame.

If you ask me, that house should have been cut about 15, or maybe even 20% from what they were asking.

IMO, this is no time to be selling if you 'don't have to sell'. If you DO have to sell, you should be prepared to get 10% LESS than that comp down the street. Take it now! Let that comp sit while you're at the closing table. Don't continue to 'follow the market down'.

Read the threads here about shadow foreclosures and the amount of *yet to be counted* foreclosures -- a vast inventory of housing in the US RE market.

Just one example: We moved ten years ago. In our former neighborhood (a 1950's development on quarter-acre lots) a house has been on the market for a little over two years. The price went down slowly until it was sitting at just above $600K three weeks ago -- when the more savvy lady across the street listed and immediately sold her house at a fair price of a bit over $500K. (This is still double what the family paid 15 years ago.) Now the other seller has to lower her price to even hope for a showing. Her 'slow dribble' of reductions over two years has only prolonged the agony.

There is no market for sellers who are 'Just Fishing'.

Chisue, I totally agree with what you said!!!!! 100% on everything! You should only be selling right now if you really, really have to.

We got our house for a fantastic deal. I felt bad for the sellers, but...it's just the way it was.

All these people chasing the market down are just extending the pain of the whole thing.

Before we bought this house we thought long and hard about our situation in life and where we are in life. We decided that we were committed to staying in this house for *at least* 5-7 years, and after that time, we expect to be able to sell for no higher than we paid. We were just trying to be Conservative. And we bought a house significantly less expensive than we could have to protect ourselves against foreclosure.

Our realtor was very honest with us. She basically said...if you want to sell this house within 5 years don't expect to get back what you paid.

One reason I'm so frustrated by this was that I was a total believer in not pricing too high. I told my agent repeatedly that I wanted to price for a quicker sale and did not want to try to maximize price. I don't think she meant to give me a price that was too high...but in retrospect that price was too high.

Well, I'm a buyer, but unfortunately the area/town we are buying in is still priced high - LA area. Some houses are priced 20% less than peak, but many are listed close to (or above)peak and they do get buyers who will pay up! We picked the town due to top rated schools and that seems to keep the prices at much higher levels than you would expect. I also noticed that more mothers have to work as they need both incomes to pay for housing.

Inventory is increasing, along with short sales and foreclosures, but not enough to affect the regular sales. I am patiently waiting for that double dip, but won't be counting on it. We are buying for the long term, so we will probably end up over paying if the right house comes on the market. DH needs an easy commute and the kids need great schools, so our choices get narrowed down pretty quickly in this part of the country.

3% can be a lot of money - especially since I never said our listing price.

Bottom line is the exact house sold two doors down the street within $10k of our listing price so I do believe we are priced right. I don't need someone to tell me what I did was a waste of time. Different areas of the country have different things going on.

I still agree with kats meow - also a total beliver in not pricing too high. But now I think if I had gone lower the comp would be even lower.

So we'll wait it out but I am over having the "perfect" house for showings. We will do the best we can but I am going to enjoy my house when in it.

I don't believe he said it was a waste of time. But they're absolutely correct. That many showing and no sale. Too high.

You're right, 3% can be a lot. But different people have different ideas of alot.

For what it's worth. We sold our house this year and the selling price was 23.5% lower than the selling price. Our real estate agent felt like it was priced with the comps when we started.

Welcome to the the new real estate reality.

3% is 3%,no matter what the listing price is..If i am buying/looking at a home at $1 million dollars,3% reduction is 30k,not an enticement to rush in and buy...

Any person remotely following real estate will tell you a 3 % reduction is chasing the market down. I doubt 3% even brings you into a new search by prospective buyers..If you are at 500k, a 3% reduction makes it 485k,not much of a price decrease to "find" new buyers

Lower the price until it hurts,if you NEED to get out..If you are just "fishing"(as another poster said),you're wasting your time

OOps, should have said selling price 23.5% lower than listing price.

Any news for anyone? I'm in the same boat. We went on in June with a price that was way too high. I knew it was too high but I didn't say much because my agent has so much experience, and my house has an inlaw unit and water views, so comps get a little tricky because water views of the city have a HUGE premium, we don't have the city in our view so those aren't comps, but we do have a good location. We corrected almost right away with a $100,000 price reduction but we still missed the heavy traffic of weekend one. That still didn't work so we went down another $50,000 and still nothing. In August we took it off and did some work to the kitchen and some small projects. My agent wanted to put it back on at the original price after the work, but this time I insisted on not doing that, but instead lowering it another $55,000, so we are $200,000 lower than our original listing, about $250,000 less than we paid (!!!!!!) and it has been on for about a week and very little interest so far. At this price it should move, I have studied the market and the closest comp priced within $10,000 of us in the same neighborhood, same basic size, not as updated, and no views sold in about 14 days. The bummer for me is that we went on a few days before that comp sold so clearly a buyer chose them over us and it is so frustrating to try and figure out that one. Ours seems a world better in almost every way. I'm trying to have an open mind about it though and see it as a good sign that I am priced right at this point. If it doesn't get an offer by mid November I'm coming off until the Spring market. I'm not sure where things are heading but there are some real bargains around my town that have never been available before.

Call me a pessimist,but i doubt the housing market gets better ANYtime soon..It has been my experience over 30 years of home ownership that prices "normally" have an inverse relationship to interest rates..Clearly,at this moment,it is isn't true,as interest rates have declined as well as home values..But,when the Fed starts raising rates(likley not for 2 years+-),home prices will come down further..JMHO

If you need to get out of your home,cut the price til it hurts BAD...

I have a buyer's perspective:

I'm renting a house now. I'm looking to buy in the next 3 years or so. I've found a neighborhood of townhouses that I like. I'm keeping an eye on the prices hoping they drop. Right now asking prices are in the mid to upper $300s. (Sales prices are in the low to mid $300s.)

These houses sold for low $200s in 1999 when they were first built. I believe these house prices have a lot further to go before they hit bottom. That being said, since the markets are what they are and I can't get a decent return on my savings, I may end up having to pay mid $300s.

HUH??

"That being said, since the markets are what they are and I can't get a decent return on my savings, I may end up having to pay mid $300s."

You stated that the prices should fall further(and i think that will happen also),but because you are getting low rates of return on investments,you'll pay a higher price then what you think/know the homes will go for ??/This makes no sense..

Well, I thought there was a "new moon" or something. After 2 1/2 months of NOTHING....we have had two showings in the last three days! I know that doesn't mean a thing, but at least it is a bit of encouragement.....now if only someone would make some type of offer so we could see where the buying point might be. So fingers crossed!

With our listing soon expiring we have to decide whether to keep it on or take it off for awhile.

I've spent quite a bit of time analyzing at what point we do better economically not selling (bear in mind we have already bought the land we intend to build on) now and carrying the costs of the house for months/years until we can sell for more.

Around here, I find the market somewhat baffling. Number of sales are down about 20% compared to last year. Active listings are up about 20%.

I also see in comps houses selling for anywhere from 10% to 30% less than what they were originally listed for and often being listed for more than 2 years before selling.

One would think based on this that prices would be lower. But actually over the last year (and really over the past few years) average and median prices have modestly risen. I just am not seeing that anywhere.

Some of the big price declines were on houses placed on the market in the 2007-2009 range. Many of them have had 30% reductions before they sold. Houses listed for the first time more recently tend to sell closer to original listing price.

Still, everything is just very slow. There are more and more listings but less and less sales....

"Houses listed for the first time more recently tend to sell closer to original listing price."

Perhaps this is due to new listings being priced according to recent sells.

I think that is so. I think the people who listed in 2007/2008 didn't know what was going to be happening and listed at a price that might have been fine in 2006 but was just too high at that point and prices kept going down.

Those of us listing this year have been more likely to be aware and try to list lower (yes, I tried to albeit I wasn't successful apparently). But that is one reason why I don't see why the average and median prices are going up since fewer houses are saying and the closed sales I see generally were sold at lower prices than originally listed.

I think people are buying but being more picky with this being a buyers market.

qdwag

Since I can't get a decent return on my investment, I may be better off using the money to buy a house sooner (even if it costs more than I think I should pay). I believe the prices will go down over time but with low/no return on my investments, I'm losing money by renting.

When you do the rent vs buy calculation you assume a certain % return on your $ if you don't buy a house. I was hoping for more than 1%!

If I could get a 10% return on my investments I don't think I'd ever buy a house. But at 1% (or lower) it may make sense.

Chrisdoc, we are in the same boat. We sold our house in March and are renting a townhouse. We love it and would buy in the complex. There are four listings, all between $575-$675,000. They've been on since May and no price drops. I think they won't get any interest until they drop into the 4's.

My area is ridiculous. Prices have not dropped much at all, we don't want to continue paying rent. Have no idea what to do.

Jane