Hi dalisk – I will try to address your questions…BTW this is SD Realtor not sdrealtor.
First off – You can verify the source of the buyers agents coming by through calling them directly and asking them. Most of them should have left cards. Simply call and ask. Unfortunately many of them may not remember so you may want to do that as soon as they come by. Altenately you can have a sign in sheet so that Realtors actually sign in when they show your home and leave thier contact information. That way you can call them if they do not leave a card. Also you can have a column that asks how they heard about your home. This will help you identify the sources of contacts. Finally if your home is on lockbox, your realtor can send you every agent that has entered your home (via lockbox) as the lockbox records when an agent uses it. Again, once you have that information you can do the legwork to check out what advertising means has been most effective.
In this slow market my personal advice to you is to try anything. Nothing is “crazy” in a slow market. Personally I have found that the MLS is best as it also will be farmed out to all internet MLS providers such as realtor.com and the others. If you are employing a full service realtor make sure they are having brokers tours for your home. IMO open houses provide more buyers leads for agents then buyers for your house. However I encourage my clients to hold them. All it takes is one buyer to hook. Again though, I don’t find them particularly useful but in this market TRY ANYTHING.
If I were you this is what I would ask my agent to send…
1 – A listing of all active and pending condos that are comparable to yours. Cover a decent sized radius, perhaps even your zip code as a who.
2 – Grab all of the solds, expireds and cancelleds as well that have come off the market since June 1.
3 – Take a look at the ratio or pendings to solds.
4 – Take a look at the ratio of what sold verses what fell off the market.
Here is an example. Lets take 3 bedroom 2.5 bath condos in Carmel Valley. Currently there are 52 Actives and 3 Pendings. The price ranges for the actives are (loosely stated 489k for the cheapest listing low end and 695k for the most expensive on the high end) Also the 3 pendings are at 499k, 509k and 529k respectively)…
Now looking at more information…Since 6/1/06, 45 properties have come off the market in the entire zip code. 7 of them were solds, 15 were expireds, 16 were cancelleds, and 7 were withdrawn.
Okay lets analyze the data. 3 pendings, 52 actives… NOT GOOD. Less then 1 out of 18 3/2.5 condos for sale actually make to escrow presently. Of those that made it to escrow nothing is listed over 529k.
Now, 7 solds out of 45 properties that came off the market. Less then 1 in 6 3/2.5 condos in 92130 have sold. Again pretty horrible. That means that 5 out of 6 3/2.5 condos that have come off the market in 92130 since 6/1/06 were either expired, cancelled, or withdrawn.
************
Besides illustrating how bad the market really is, (at least for 3/2.5 condos in 92130) this is ALL data your Realtor can provide for you in order to help you price your home.
To be quite honest with you, this is well beyond days on market, and trying to find basic correlations. I am an engineer and a Realtor and I crunch numbers and search for correlations more then most Realtors in this business. However I firmly believe that we are entering a spot where you cannot find accurate linear correlations because of market psychology. Unless you can clearly demonstrate exceptional VALUE in your pricing, then you are going to rely on Lady Luck. I am not saying you won’t sell your condo by taking small nibbles downward, AKA chasing the market. However I am advising my clients to really think about exceptionally aggressive pricing. Not beating your neighbors by 2-3% but beating them by 5-10% or more.
With that said THERE IS NO PRICE THAT GAURANTEES A SALE. I wish there was. You may find that slashing it still may not do the trick. Again, the real estate market is a slave to momentum.
Now you may find that you cannot tolerate the sort of slashing that I am referring to. That it may be more prudent to simply hold on to your home and perhaps rent it out. Also there are seasonal components in all RE trends so we will see more sales activity in the spring. We will also see more inventory. I think this spring will be perhaps one of the most important springs of all for SD Real Estate. I am bearish, probably middle of the road bearish compared to some of the others here.
Also for a quick months of inventory calculation simply do the following. Take the total number of solds for the past 6 months. Divide by 6. That gives you a monthly average. Then take the total actives on the market today. Divide that by the monthly average. Make sure you use YOUR PROPERTY TYPE in YOUR REGION.
Example – Say in your zip, your housing type, there were 36 homes sold in the past 6 months, that is 36/6 or 6/month. Then there are currently 54 actives. So that means there are 54/6 = 9 months of inventory. Out there.
I will say however that in this declining market this calculation is simplistic and does not represent the shift in psychology from just 6 months ago.
I do not believe that chasing the market is effective. I believe you should gather all you can about the resale pricing in your area, the conversion pricing, and the new development pricing. Beat them all or be able to effectively prove why your home is the best deal. If you are paying a full service brokerage 2.5-3% to list your home make sure they are doing all your open houses, sending our direct mailers, running newspaper ads, doing brokers tours, and everything short of spinning a sign on your corner. Make sure your Realtor is constantly updating you with your competition. When a comp in your area changes prices, goes into escrow, or drops off the market you should be informed.
