Thursday, May 10, 2007

Weekly Screen Scrape - Acceleration?

Okay so 3 weeks doesn't exactly make a trend, but over the last three weeks the price per square foot of the properties in my search criteria have dropped by a dollar a week!

If this keeps up I might be able to buy within the next year rather than the two years it was looking like a couple weeks ago. With better pricing comes more sales, and I did see a modest uptick contract activity this week.

Saw some interesting things this week..... 1) A house come back on the market, it had been withdrawn, for $30,000 more than what it was last listed at! 2) A resale in the Riata at Empire Ranch, development in Folsom finally went pending. The sales office was willing to take offers on new places for $15,000 below their last listing price. I will be very curious to see what they were able to sell it for.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've also seen a couple of properties in my neighborhood (Cool, Pilot Hill) go off-market and come back at higher prices. In both cases, they were listed high originally, lowered their prices in winter months, and went up again in the spring.
I can't imagine what's behind this behavior, whether it's a tactic or just a manifestation of some private delusion. Both properties were bought around the peak, and have "wishing" prices. Of course they are playing the DOM re-set game, it's the pricing I don't get.

Buying Time said...

I have seen a great deal of the DOM re-set game occuring over the last month or so. In most cases they lower their asking price, but this one baffles me a bit. The only explanation I can think of, is it must be a short sale, which the bank didn't approve at the lower price.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Cool/Pilot Hill, a McMansion at 4300 square feet in Pilot Hill on 10 beautiful acres is now down to $885K. It started at $1.2 Million around last August. 10 acres alone in that area would have sold for around $475K in oct.-'05. I believe this home is priced nice now and will sell between $815-$865K.
Sellers wanting to sell, and asking too much for today's market are only hurting the market worse. Inventory continues to climb, and TIME is LOST!
Also, AB, you said the "Sales Office" but said it was a resale? Is this a brand new home?
-FolsomRentFam

Buying Time said...

Anon -

In this development they are still building so the new sales are now competing with resales (we've actually seen this in several develoments). Unfortunately for the reseller, the builder can drop their price substanially and still do okay. I have a feeling the resellers will be underwater in most of these cases.