Busy Weekend and a War Story

This past weekend was busy for me. I held two open houses, attempted to negotiate a buy, showed some houses to two sets of potential buyers and discussed selling strategy with all four of my sellers.

The market is clearly slow, the traffic at the open houses was minimal but I did have the opportunity to read the article in the Sacramento Bee. “Come right in, folks,” about open houses which I thought was remarkably non-thought provoking.

One of the most interesting things that happened over the weekend was a counter offer one of my clients received on a home they made an offer on. Now remember that we live in “Glutville” when it comes to homes on the market. Even the recent HousingTracker numbers for Sacramento continue to show inventory growing each week and asking prices dropping. My buyers offer was 5.7 percent lower than the asking price. The seller and his astute agent who I think doubles as a lender, countered our offer at full price. They sent a note with the counter saying since they listed the home the seller has lowered his price $30,000 and feels my buyer should understand why he wants his current asking price.

Attention sellers - please understand your price reductions to get buyers attentions is not their issue. In today’s market buyers have negotiating power and because we can’t count on double digit appreciation the purchase price has become very important. My buyer, like most buyers, wanted to negotiate and was willing to increase his offer. This was not here is my “low ball” offer, take it or leave it. This seller showed he was unwilling to negotiate and lost a potential sale in a market where buyers are scarce.

In this buyers market I would never advise my clients to list their property with their bottom line sales price. You should leave some room to negotiate with your buyer.