East Bay Blog

PRICE!  My advice to sellers in this market is work with a professional real estate agent (like us:-), and be realistic with the price.  Price has always been a very important factor if not the most important factor, but in today's market, the price becomes that much more important.  As inventory has increased, the chances of another home on the market being very similar to yours has become more likely.  Savvy buyers working with professional real estate agents are going to see several homes.  Chances are if they've seen yours, they've seen the one down the street.  To compete, set a realistic price from the outset. 

Most homes get the most exposure during the 1st month on the market.  If your home is not getting any showings, chances are it is priced too high.  If it is getting showings, but not selling, you've priced right, it's just not showing well.  Have your Realtor give you some staging advice.  If your home is on the market too long, it will become a candidate for a low ball offer.  Be realistic with the price, and if market conditions change, change your price with them.

Buyers, make sure you are working with a good agent, like us :-)  Make sure your agent can give you history about the property you are interested in, was it on the market before? How long was it on the market? Why didn't it sell?  Also, make sure your agent is willing to negotiate aggressively on your behalf.  The seller pays the agent's commissions, you should always have your own agent working on your behalf to get you the home you want, at a price you are happy with.

My First Blog.

Today is March 23, 2007 and have decided to start a blog about the East Bay Real Estate market.  My goal will be to update this blog on a weekly basis.  If you notice that I am not keeping up with that, I invite you to e-mail me and let me know about it.  As I type this first blog, we sit at the start of spring.  Spring is the season when we see a lot of inventory hit the market.  What makes this year somewhat different from the last several is that we are in a buyer's market, with a lot of inventory already available.  It is going to be a very interesting time in the next couple of months as we see if the buyers come back, and bring more equilibrium to the market, or if we just see an increase in inventory without the buyers.  If the buyers don't come back, and inventory does increase, as it always does this time of year, that will put increased downward pressure on prices.  Anyone who purchased in the last three years may see any equity they made over that time period disappear. 

The good news is that Real Estate is a great long term investment.  If you can sit tight for a couple of years you are almost guaranteed to see your investment go up in value.  If you do have to sell now, you may suffer a bit but you will benefit on the purchase end of your move. 

The other elephant in the room is the threat of the crumbling sub-prime market.  It seems like you can't turn the TV on anymore without hearing another story about a sub-prime company going belly up.  Yes, there were loans given to many people who should not have been buying homes over the last several years and we are paying for it now.  As long as the problem does not spread into the prime mortgage market we should be ok, let's wait and see...