My anecdotal take is that actual selling prices have come down 10% – 20% from the very peak but houses are getting snatched up very quickly if they are at these prices.
I’ve seen that too, I think however that it only appears that way is because those that are “right priced” are so obvious. They’re the 5-10% of the market that is selling, 80% of the market still thinks it’s 2005, and the remaining 20% think it is 2007 which means 2006 wishing price +20%.
The right priced ones, come on and they sell in 30-60 days. In the better areas, maybe less. While everything with a wishing price languishes there for a year+. That makes it appear like snapping up.
The reality is, we still have 3000 sales a month of which ~2400 are resales. I’d guess only about 1000-1500 a month have “the right price” to start and are gone quickly and the rest “find the right price”. Hence, a right price is still going to move quickly because their is so much denial in the sellers on what the right price is. Literally, there’s a 10-20% price difference between them and the majority of the market and a 30-40% difference between them and those with wishing prices.
If the market ever gets back to the people trying to sell actually being in the ballpark for prices that will sell, that snapping won’t be obvious. And I suspect it will really drive prices down. If you have 2 homes priced at $800K in a former million dollar neighborhood, they move, when all the sellers figure it out and there’s now 20 for sale at $800K, $800K isn’t going to move’em.
