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Listings With Price Cuts May Become Even More Frequent

A report from the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. “Even in a hot housing market like Tampa Bay’s, a bit of divine intervention never hurts. Sellers, meet St. Joseph. Legend has it that burying a statue of St. Joseph near a home for sale can quickly attract a buyer. Hence, a banner business in ‘St. Joseph Home Selling Kits’ that contain a statue of Joseph and a prayer card.”

“Not everyone is high on Joseph. In October, one reviewer of a St. Joseph selling kit on Amazon gave it a single star out of a possible five. ‘Coincidence at best. Don’t waste your$. He didn’t help sell my house so I threw St. Joseph out of my yard and told him not to come back or I’ll call the authorities.'”

From KOMO News in Washington. “Seattle home price growth slowed again in the latest period, dropping to fourth highest in the nation after reigning as No. 1 for much of the past two years. New data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index show that average Seattle home prices have actually dropped by about 2.4 percent over the past two months. That’s the steepest drop of any city in the index.”

“‘Prospective home buyers can no longer sustain the demand that propped up aggressively rising home prices,’ said Cheryl Young, a senior economist with the Trulia. ‘With little sign that home buyers’ purchasing power will strengthen into 2019, expect the housing market to stagnate well into next year.'”

The Denver Post in Colorado. “Home price gains across much of the country, including metro Denver, showed signs of slowing in October, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. ‘October marked another month of slowing home-price appreciation, but ‘ recent signs point to a gentle softening of the housing market, rather than a crash landing,’ said Ralph McLaughlin, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic in a blog post on the numbers.”

The Dallas Morning News in Texas. “Houses are taking longer to sell in North Texas, and there is a growing number of price cuts. Through the first 11 months of 2018 the number of homes up for sale in the region has grown almost 25 percent.”

“‘Listings with price cuts and longer time on market — already both growing — may become even more frequent,’ Zillow senior economist Aaron Terrazas said. ‘For the time being, this slowdown represents a return to fundamentals more than anything else, and to more balance between buyers and sellers.'”

From the Oregonian. “Boom. Bust. Boom. Sales have slumped, and houses that might once have sold in a couple of days instead took a couple of weeks. ‘I’m trying to tell people that this hasn’t been a normal market’ in recent years, said Leslie Jones, a managing broker at Re/Max Equity Group in Portland.”

“But as home price increases have slowed, homeowners have been slow to adapt. That’s resulted in more sellers lowering prices after their homes sat on the market for a few weeks. In November, a third of active Portland home listings dropped their price.”

“‘We all like to say we think we know what our houses are worth,’ said Matthew Gardner, chief economist for Windermere Realty Group. ‘But home sellers’ expectations are still too high.'”

The San Francisco Business Journal in California. “Even as more and more Bay Area cities surpass the $1 million median home price mark, with the bulk of inventory out of reach for potential homebuyers in the lower earning rungs, San Francisco’s prices have slightly sagged. Socketsite recently reported that one-third of San Francisco’s homes are listed for under $1 million, with inventory at that level up 3 percent from 2017 as price cuts spike.”

From Lehigh Valley Live in Pennsylvania. “Price reductions continue to be common in the Lehigh Valley’s housing market. Sellers, real estate agents say, could lower listing prices for a variety of reasons. They run the gamut from homes being overpriced in the initial listing to buyers getting into financial binds and needing to sell faster than originally thought.”

“Nationally, about 13 percent of sellers reduce the price of their house at least once. The longer a home is on the market, the lower the odds are of selling it for list price, according to a Zillow report. Sellers who accept an offer within the first week of listing have a 57 percent chance of selling for list price. During week two, it’s 50 percent, and then it drops to 39 percent, 32 percent, and so on, according to Zillow.”

“The region continues to have a great amount of properties dropping asking prices weekly. We gathered a sampling of some of the most recent reductions in Northampton and Lehigh counties and listed them from high to low, according to Trulia. The steepest savings we found included one home reduced by $700,000.”

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This Post Has 34 Comments

  2. Holy Ebola Batman, that’s a lot of sawin’ and a slashin’ for the day after Christmas!

    The report was out Wednesday and I guess they held back so as not to add to the Blue Christmas.

    1. Not a crater when average per square foot is up $6. That said inventory is taking 30 more days to sell YOY which to me is a bigger headline.

      2. per square foot is up $6

        Unfortunate UHS koolaid to make you think a more expensive house is cheaper. Avg ft2 is down by 400.

  4. I’m trying to tell people that this hasn’t been a normal market’ in recent years, said Leslie Jones, a managing broker at Re/Max Equity Group in Portland.”

    Sure you have, Leslie. “Always Be Closing” is incompatible with truth-telling.

  5. “‘Listings with price cuts and longer time on market — already both growing — may become even more frequent,’ Zillow senior economist Aaron Terrazas said. ‘

    Aaron gets paid the big bucks to share such flashes of the blindingly obvious we Great Unwashed would never figure out on our own.

    1. “The longer a home is on the market, the lower the odds are of selling it for list price, according to a Zillow report.”

      Isn’t the correct statement that the more overpriced a home’s list price is compared with current market value, the less likely it is to ever sell without substantial price cuts?

  7. Not housing related by life related….

    Hi, my name is,” each begins. Then something like, “and I’m an internet and tech addict.”

    The eight who’ve gathered here are beset by a level of tech obsession that’s different than it is for those of us who like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service. For them, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care
    https://apnews.com/4bc29730f4b94cd294fbe8fcdb54b760

    1. I was with family this Christmas and some of my best memories revolve around playing video games with family and friends. I still remember when I opened, to my great astonishment, a brand new Nintendo game system with Super Mario 2. To this day it was the best gift I have ever received.

      I know that there are legitimate tech addicts. I am glad that I have been able to enjoy games and technology without flunking out of classes, a job, or life. I am more of a running addict than a tech addict.

      3. I have twin sons. One is a running addict, the other a tech addict. In my parental appraisal, running is the far better addiction.

  10. “Legend has it that burying a statue of St. Joseph near a home for sale can quickly attract a buyer.”

    We know from past experience that housing is toast once the MSM starts trotting out the well-worn story about how burying a St. Joseph statue in the yard can help you sell your house.

    1. I believe it’s the “skyscrapers to the moon” and “St. Joseph buried in my yard” stories that usually indicate the peak. Oh and the “180 sq. ft. shed in London sells for 1,000,000 pounds” story is another one.

  11. The New York Times
    Remember Bitcoin? Some Investors Might Want to Forget

    For a few sweet months of 2018, all of Silicon Valley was wrapped up in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and a related technology called the blockchain. Not anymore.
    Credit Kalnins/Reuters
    By Nellie Bowles
    Dec. 27, 2018

    PALO ALTO, Calif. — Last year around this time, a toy called a cryptokitty sold for $170,000. A real estate agent remade himself as CoinDaddy, producing cryptocurrency-themed music videos. The man behind a company called Ripple became for a moment richer than Mark Zuckerberg. Kids barely out of high school were buying Lamborghinis because of a crypto meme. Experts went on CNBC to say Bitcoin was going to reach $100,000 per coin.

    For a few sweet months of 2018, all of Silicon Valley was wrapped up in frenzied easy money and a fantasy of remaking the world order with cryptocurrencies and a related technology called the blockchain. A flood of joy hit the Bay Area. The New York Times ran with the trend in an article with the headline “Everyone Is Getting Hilariously Rich and You’re Not.” It was temporarily true.

    And just as the American public had been given every possible blockchain explainer that could be written, the whole thing collapsed. The bubble popped.

    Today the price of Bitcoin — $19,783 last December — is $3,810. Litecoin was $366 a coin; it’s now $30. Ethereum was $1,400 in January; today it’s $130.
    …

    1. Seems fit for a 1 hour special on tv. Makes you wonder why these ignorant realtors get such a bad rap after all they don’t know how to use computers…

      “I know of a cocaine dealer who got his license back within three months of getting out of prison,”

      Slap on the wrist and back at the crookestate

    1. The U.S. Census Bureau new home sales report was supposed to come out today. Website says gov shutdown is delaying the report… I think buying time so they can close the year out before the bad news hits the MSM

    1. a gentle softening of the housing market, rather than a crash landing,’ said Ralph

      Rockets don’t just level off when they’ve run out of fuel Ralphy.

  16. All the panhandlers and junkies in Denver have spread to the south suburbs now.

    Come for the weed, stay for the heroin.

    1. In Colorado Springs the panhandler infestation has spread from downtown (mainly Old Colorado Springs) to the northern suburbs. They sit (usually with dogs, which tugs the heartstrings of middle-aged suburban do-gooder housewives) at intersections directly under signs that warn panhandling at those intersections is illegal for “safety” reasons. There are more and more flea-bitten young riffraff couples with one or two spawn in tow, trying to beg from motorists at the exits of all the shopping and dining complexes.

  17. Marxism is very popular in Communist China, so long as you only discuss the theory and don’t put the ideas into practice.

    1. World News
      December 25, 2018 / 11:32 PM / 2 days ago
      Leading Chinese Marxist student taken away by police on Mao’s birthday
      Christian Shepherd, Ben Blanchard

      BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police detained a well-known Marxist at a top university on Wednesday, a witness said, on the sensitive anniversary of the 125th birthday of the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, whose legacy remains deeply contested.

      Qiu Zhanxuan, head of the Peking University Marxist Society, was grabbed and forced into a black car outside the east gate of Peking University by a group of heavy-set men who identified themselves as police, a student told Reuters.

      “I saw a black car parked by the gate and seven or eight men in plainclothes lifting him by his arms and legs and forcing him into the car,” the student said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation.
      …

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