FWIW, we sold a house this past summer for 30% off peak price. It was paid-off, and we needed to sell it to settle the estate.
Our realtor wanted to list it at a particular price, even though I wanted to list lower. After a couple of days, I had her drop the price $40,000 — very much against her advice — and had a couple of offers within two weeks or so. Final sale was another $20K off our VERY LOW final list price.
At the time, there were two other houses in the area listed around the price our realtor originally listed at. I believe one of them is still there, and has been listed at our “low” price for many months. I think the other one was expired or withdrawn, but not sure. Another house is now listed across the street from the one we sold for $35,000 less than what we sold it for (we sold for about 2003 price — by far the lowest the n’hood had seen in YEARS), and it has a pool, bigger yard, extra bedroom and is larger.
Point is, there are some sellers out there who can very well sell for 25% off (or LESS than!!!) the peak or list price. All a buyer has to do is find those sellers. That’s where the comps will be coming from.
Sellers are delusional, and will chase the market all the way down. Realtors who aren’t honest with them about what’s happening in the market are doing their clients a disservice. These same realtors are shooting themselves in the foot, as qualified buyers are becoming more and more scarce. Buyers don’t give a da*n about a realtor’s ego, and if realtors can’t do their jobs, then buyers will start going through attorneys, who don’t have any conflict of interest (they aren’t offended by lowballs, and couldn’t care less if other agents “like them” or not).
