"Selling? Know The Market!"

If you must sell your property in this market... You have got to know the numbers. You can be successful, yet you must play by the rules!

I poured my coffee this morning and it caught my eye. "Stock Market Suffers, Due to Poor Real Estate Performance." Aahhrrrggg! When you make your living helping people buy and sell real estate, this can be a challenge. Not because houses won't sell... but because these headlines reek of pessimism. The fact is that houses can and will sell. It helps if you've got equity - for sure - but smart sellers are, well, selling.

There are symptoms, however. If I was a real estate doctor, I'd be prescribing, "aspirin, lots of fluids and plenty of rest. Move if you must, but don't push it." Want a snapshot of "real world?" This month we watched an absolute auction of two lots (not houses, just lots) in a local "Premier ICW, Golf, Ocean" community. The seller had purchased these lots for $535,000 and $505,000 two years ago. Ready for this? They sold at auction for $235,000 and $185,000. Gulp... We had a house listed for $340,000 and an offer came in at $275,000. The seller didn't like it, but they knew the deal and worked it. Ten days later, we had an executed contract that both parties liked at $300,000. We also sold a couple of new-builds. They are dealing, because they know the numbers. An investor was able to purchase a great rental house for $162,000... not too bad from the $179,000 asking price. As the Realtors involved, we also earned a nice bonus on top of the normal professional fee.

So, if sell you must, know this: More than 430,000 foreclosures were confirmed from Jan-March, 2007. Whew - that's a bunch. And the prediction is for more than 1,000,000 more within a year. This drives inventory UP and prices DOWN. Florida has 4 of the Top 25 "Worst Markets." Palm Coast is small, but %-wise, we are being hit very hard by foreclosures. Investors buying on speculation are 30% more scarce than last year. Like the Swallows at Capistrano, we'll know the market is turning around, when they start to return. But don't be fooled by people saying things like, "I heard someone say it's getting better." It's not. And it probably won't for a year or more.