Nobody is dumping on price – just be reasonable. From the ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/price-637201-home-percent.html
Thomas and Wendy Lari made a pact.
Thomas wanted to rent out their old home. Wendy wanted to sell it so they’d have money to fix up their new one. So he gave her two months to sell it. If she failed, they would become landlords.
In the end, she met the deadline – just barely. But it took two price chops totaling $15,000.
“I was a little bit disappointed,” Wendy Lari said of the final price of more than $800,000. “We knew that (our original price) wasn’t overly realistic, but we thought we’d give it a shot.”
Reality is setting in for home sellers across Orange County.
Rather than holding out for the big price gains seen a year ago, most sellers are cutting their prices to get their homes sold.
The average price cut for homes under $1 million was $15,500 this summer, according to figures from Brea housing consultant Pat Veling of Real Data Strategies. A year earlier, the typical price cut was under $3,000.
Put another way, buyers are paying 97 percent of sellers’ original asking prices this year, vs. 99 percent – almost full price – in the summer of 2013.
“It seems like 80 percent to 90 percent of the sales are reductions,” said Bart Smith, an agent with Evergreen Realty in Orange. “(Sellers are) overpricing them. They’re looking at listings and not at closed sales.”
Wendy Lari thought she was in the ballpark when she priced her home at $850,000 last April. A similar home in the area had sold for $844,000 two months earlier.
Time was running out to find a buyer when she got an offer for $828,000. That deal fell through.
But just as it did, a real estate agent made an offer equivalent to $835,000. The agent wanted to pay $814,500, but would forego her $20,000 commission. That deal closed.
“I was a little bit bummed, but it wasn’t horrible,” Wendy Lari said. “If you go in thinking that you’re going to get 3 percent to 4 percent more than the last sale, that’s not going to happen.”
She listed April 29, 2014 for $850,000, and opened escrow on July 2nd for $814,500 with no commission to buyer’s agent? She didn’t give it away! (she had paid $460,000 in 2002). P.S. the realtor who bought her home has it for rent on Zillow, asking $3,500/month.
Read full article here:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/price-637201-home-percent.html
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/27822-Trellis-Way-Laguna-Niguel-CA-92677/25552229_zpid/
Less than 4% cap rate after expenses and taxes. That Realtor is betting hard on continued appreciation.
@ livin’ I would second that opinion!
The realtor needs a reality check for sure. We are late in the game to be spending $800K and then renting for $3,500 a month. Not seeing a good return here at all.
If the agent was coming out of an exchange and was running out of time, then buying this with the intent to owner-occupy after 1-2 years, it might make sense.