Alright, longtime lurker here and this topic chaps my hyde enough that I must speak up!
If I’m not mistaken, the value-range scam was hatched when there were multiple offers (over asking price) coming in on properties. It was a greedy, opportunistic ploy to squeeze as much money out of the buyer pool as possible. The market cooled, but the value-range stayed. I have voiced my displeasure about it more than once and have been told by realtors that at this stage it simply serves to widen the potential audience by casting a larger net when buyers do price searches online. Fair enough, I can live with that.
I have been looking to buy here in SD for 3 years now and have watched the market go from a sellers one to clearly a buyers market. When I now walk into an open house that has been on the market for 3 months and am verbally quoted a “value range that the seller will ENTERTAIN” by the agent I take it as an insult to my intelligence! It has pissed me off enough on one occasion that I refused to even walk thru the open house……on another occasion I hung-up on a realtor when they quoted me the price-range crap on a 125 day old listing!
So now it appears that an equally sleazy reason for it’s use is to falsely advertise a price on a home in order to bump the buyer up to the REAL price after emotions get into the mix.
I for one will not partake in this used car-dealer crap any longer dammit!! Who’s with me?
