We should be hitting our highest inventory count for the year right about now. The last two years saw the San Diego inventory top out towards the end of summer, as unsuccessful sellers packed it in for the off-season:
Asking prices today are quite a bit higher than last summer too, yet the actual inventory count is lower. It is still shocking that these record prices haven’t brought out more sellers.
But what is needed are more sellers willing to heed the market signals.
How will we know if sellers are motivated enough to sell for what the market will bear?
1. We’ll see more sales.
2. We’ll see more fixers selling – there’s always a market for the creampuffs.
3. We’ll see improving SP:LP ratio and average DOM.
We know the frenzy is over, but it hasn’t stopped sellers from pushing their list prices higher. But sales are sliding downward, which means buyers are more cautious about getting their money’s worth.
The market is fine, and there are plenty of buyers. In most cases we are probably only talking about 4% to 8% difference between buyers and sellers – hopefully with the selling season closing out, we’ll have more realistic expectations help find a way to bridge the gap.
Jim:
Do you agree with Sean?
http://sdcia.websitetoolbox.com/post/soft-market-in-san-diego-7007656
I don’t know Sean or the board there, but impressive that he has 424 posts – he must have something to say.
But he has had his license since 2009.
There is only one thing that matters – that participants adopt one fact; “There’s Nothing Price Won’t Fix”.
Everyone plays the blame game and gets some benfit of regurgitating the same excuses we hear on the news every day. If you keep saying the same things that everyone is saying, it makes it sound like you know what you are talking about.
But nobody cares that a house in Spring Valley has had no showings, sellers are cutting prices, investors are nervous, Dodd-Frank, etc. – sellers need to adjust their price to adapt to the current market conditions, and if they don’t, they won’t sell.
I can spend a million dollars on advertising and have your home on the front page of every newspaper in the Western world – and it won’t sell unless the price is right.
I could do open house for 24 hours a day, spend five or six figures on staging, shake hands with everyone in the neighborhood and send a bottle of tequila to every agent in the closest 5 states and if the price ain’t right, it ain’t selling.
The game-changer is the person who can get that through the sellers heads. Once that happens, we can just go to the auction format and use that to pump an extra 2% or 3% into the price.