Friday, September 14, 2007

Yes a buyer's market is still a great time to sell a home!

Do not be fooled by the media and unsuccessful real estate agents, a buyer's market is not only a great time for a buyer to buy but also a good time for a seller to sell. Sure it may take a little longer for the average home to sell because there is a lot more inventory, hence more for the buyers to choose from, but a home will sell as long as you have the right real estate broker. If your real estate broker/agent is telling you that this is a bad time to sell, that is because that agent does not know how to sell a home.

In addition, this is a great opportunity for a seller to move up. For example, I have a client who wants to sell her home, she just bought it a little over 1 year ago, it is in a development of many homes of similar design. When she 1st bought her home for $400,000 she really liked the larger model but it was going for $525,000 and that was too expensive for her. The home that she paid $400,000 for is now worth about $340,000-$350,000. On paper it would seem like a very bad time to sell as she just lost, but she really wants a bigger home. The larger model home she really wanted is now.... $410,000! She lost about $60,000 on her home, but the house she could not afford at $525,000 is now $410,000!.. so a savings of $115,000 minus her $60,000 loss and she is ahead of the game at $55,000.

In addition, many of my sellers are able to drop the price of their homes $50,000-$100,000 from what they had wanted to get because the houses they are looking to buy have dropped at least $100,000 so it is a complete wash and usually the seller ends up benefiting from the current buyer's market and not losing after dropping the price of their home. Here is an example of one of my clients:

Her house is listed at $700,000 and I have been telling her it is too high and we need to get it down to $650,000. She is looking to buy a house about 30-40 minutes north. The houses that she has been looking at are around $800,000 and if she gets about $700,000 on her sale she can do the $800,000 purchase. Now the houses that she is interested in have dropped about $75,000, she is now able to drop her price to $650,000 and she will actually make out with a $25,000 savings. If a seller is smart and thinks like this, they will do well in this buyers market.

Any market is a good time to sell, it all depends on each persons situation. This has been my busiest year in real estate!

Michael Trinchitella
Putnam County NY Real Estate

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