How to Sell in a Down Market And Get a Deal on a New Home
8 octobre 2007 – 0:14Going, Going, Even Auctions Aren’t Moving Homes
Builders and real-estate agents are turning to auctions to get rid of excess homes on the market, with mixed success. The Orlando Sentinel reports on an auction held at the DeBary Golf & Country Club that was called off because the builder, Lakeside Homes of DeBary, was losing too much money.
“The bidding was sluggish. One unit originally priced at $355,000 sold for $165,000. And so with just a few town homes gone, auctioneer Eddie Haynes called off the sale,” the Sentinel reports.
On Saturday in San Diego several hundred people turned out for an auction of 56 new townhomes and condominiums put on the block by homebuilder D.R. Horton, reports the San Diego Union Tribune.
How many units were sold? That information wasn’t available because, as the paper reports, the event was closed to the media.
Horton did not comment to the Tribune, only issuing a statement saying “it viewed the auction as a way to quickly sell completed inventory.”
One real-estate agent quoted by the Tribune says that auction prices were “comparable with the market,” but there were few true bargains.
For tips on selling a home by auction, click here. June Fletcher offers advice for buying a home before it hits the auction block here.
What Slump? D.C.’s Inner Circle Doing Fine
It pays to live in the “inner circle” for people who live in the Washington, D.C. area. Home prices in Virginia’s close-in suburbs, such as Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax county, are already on the way up, according to an article in the Examiner. Fairfax county houses take 68 days to sell on average, while outer-suburb homes take three months.
Meanwhile the Washington Post reports that the lack of affordable housing in Fairfax county is causing families to stay in public housing even after they exceed income caps: “In the most extreme cases, Fairfax is underwriting rents for families making well into six figures. And they do so with the tacit approval of county housing administrators, who do little to encourage occupants to move on when their fortunes improve.”
Why would the affluent choose to remain in public housing?
The Post notes that last month Fairfax was named the nation’s most affluent county by the Census Bureau. The median new-home price in the region’s largest jurisdiction is $960,000, the paper notes.
“Public housing in Fairfax County is very nice housing,” said one director quoted in the story. “You may not want to stay in public housing in some places because it’s horrible. It’s slums. That is not the case here.”
Post-Boom New Jersey Bidding Wars
Home buyers in the New York suburbs of northern New Jersey are getting into bidding wars. But they’re not the same as the battles of the housing boom, when house hunters vied to present a winning offer as soon as a home hit the market, says the Record of Hackensack, N.J.
Now bidding wars most often take place when the owner of a property that isn’t selling reduces the asking price to the “sweet spot” — a dollar amount considered a “good value” by consumers, the newspaper says. For instance, one homeowner in Tenafly, N.J., reduced her asking price five times — from a high of $810,000 to a low of $699,000. In May, her final asking price garnered multiple bids after her home had been on the market for about eight months. She eventually sold her house for a little less than her final list price, the Record says.