Cindy's Blog

Well, once again, it's time for the weekly update on the market- although sometimes it seems like daily or hourly updates are more needed. My hope, as I know many people's is, is that things perk up a bit with the election is over. Regardless of which way it goes, it at least removes one question mark from the table...that's my theory at least.

I have some really terrific listings right now (check them out!) but the competition out there is stiff, particularly when it comes to prices. Many folks put their homes on the market, competitively priced, only to then find that there are a number of other homes dropping their prices almost immediately. Trust me, no one wants to win the competition of price dropping!

One of my past clients, though, sent me some interesting info today, from the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics Blog. Per research done by the real estate website Zillow.com, almost half of homeowners think that they are immune to price declines in the market. It's important to remember that while it is a great time to buy, and people get excited about that, it's not a great time to sell (clearly a much less exciting prospect). However, it is just as important to remember that there is never (in my recollection) going to be a market where you can sell high and buy low with any sort of predictable consistency.

"Despite a financial crisis, market volatility and continued indications of declining home prices, 17% of homeowners told Zillow they think their own home’s value stayed the same over the past year, while 32% said their home has appreciated in value. Zillow estimates that nearly three-quarters of homes have lost value in the past 12 months.

However, the numbers in the third-quarter indicate that more homeowners are seeing the effects the bursting of the housing bubble has on them. In Zillow’s second-quarter survey, 62% of respondents thought that their home value had increased or stayed the same over the past year.

The survey was conducted Oct. 7-9, while stock markets tumbled in one of the worst selloffs in history, making the results all the more surprising."

While the market in the Richmond area has definitely fared better than so many around the country, things have been at a good bit of a drag for the past few months. It's definitely a great time to buy, particularly if you're renting, and not the worst time to sell, as long as you're buying- you'll definitely pay less on that end, though you may well have gotten less on the sales end.

In my opinion, however, the economy, at least the real estate portion (obviously, quite a large part) is not going to fully recover until people really start thinking realistically as sellers, and knowing that the market value of their home truly is only what the market is willing to pay. Unfortunately, there really are still a lot of folks who believe that their homes are just that much better than all the other homes in their area. (This is usually true of people in any market), and also lots of folks who believe that their home, for some reason is truly, illogically, unaffected by the market conditions that everyone else is experiencing. The most difficult, though, are perhaps the clients who say they "have to" get a certain price for their house, even though that's well beyond what the market will bear. There is no way to either explain this to the "market" and certainly no one we can make them care, regardless of how nice they are.

I really do firmly believe that until we have more normal prices, things are not really going to improve. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later!!