Housing Markets A “Headache” For Sellers & “Wait-And-See” For Buyers

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Orlando Weekly Market Update 5/05/07

What does it take to sell a home these days is the big question and the answers are not easy to find. Yes, great pricing is the way to start, but if there are no buyers for your price range of home, you are out of luck. The old adage, everything sells for a price is true, but let’s be realistic one can only go so low before it does not make any sense. We basically cover a 6 county area and there are many areas where homes just do not sell at the price they are marketed, and sellers cannot sell unless their drop the price to a point where they many have to go below the price they bought the home for, and then it may still not sell.
Here is the crux of the problem. Having to spread 1900 buyers per month, who buy resale homes every month, over 29,000 available homes is like trying to put a square beg in a round hole. You understand the difficulties. If there are 25 homes for sale in your subdivision, and 100 in your zipcode, it’s not easy for the buyers to see so many homes. Therefore, the buyers will never see you home because you can only look at so many homes before a buying decision is made. Since the internet is the primary search medium for homebuyers to look for homes, you get to make sure your home is priced perfectly and has a visual tour; otherwise, it may never be visited by the prospective buyers on their online search.

There is only one good first impression when a buyer visits your home and you got to make sure it looks perfect. Make sure your landscaping is detailed and gives your home a great curb appeal. Make sure the interior is clean and get rid of too much furniture, remove your personal stuff from the walls such as personal pictures and empty your garage. If your garage is filled to the rim with stuff, the new buyer is not going to see how he can get his stuff in the garage either. Pricing will get the buyer into your home, but once they are there you have to put your best foot forward.

Let me be very honest so you understand what we are facing for a long time. There will be 30% less buyers over the next 2 to 3 years simply because of the changes in mortgage rules. People will not be able to qualify for a mortgage, or not qualify for the amount of mortgage, and therefore the problem of oversupply will not go away for along long time. For how long? This is everyone’s guess. But the lack of “Anything goes Mortgage Money” will hurt the housing industry for many years to come. 30% of loans over the past 4 years were made by sub prime lenders. They are begging the government for a bailout and will not be here to cause crazy market frenzy again in the next 10 or more years. There is no quick fix for this. Lots of people are in for a rude awakening and I am predicting that home prices will be dropping to maybe 2003 levels before it is all over. If you absolutely have to sell, tell us what your drop dead price is and lets see if this is something realistic we can work with.

Discussion Forum

Topic	Posts	Last Poster
Is Social Media Marketing Effective in Real Estate Industry?	3	katescape
The importance of Local.com to real estate agents	1	HItxt101
NEED AGENTS / & REFERRALS	45	DainaBurness
Ethical values in real estate business	2	ballyhoo
MLS exposure without paying the commissions!!	5	uniquepam
Ethics	2	garyfrimann
3 Point Digital Marketing Strategy and the Importance of the ‘Assist’	1	HItxt101
35% Referrals to Valley of the Sun - Arizona	1	k4homes
Inexpensive Real Estate Websites	5	ncarey
RisMedia Forum - What a Response!!!	1	mycondospot

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