Posted on 07/12/2010 6:19:12 PM PDT by ggrrrrr23456
My mother is preparing to sell the home that she and my late father have lived in for more than thirty years. Luckily, the housing market hasn't affected her that much since the area she lives in has become a hotspot for real estate over the years (Bay Area, CA).
The realtor she has been working with is, in my opinion, being pushy. He wants her to sell the house as soon as possible (within the next two months) and I'm of the opinion that she needs to wait given the depressed market and current economic situation. She also doesn't move as fast as she used to, and two months of packing, remodeling, maintenance, and whirlwind activity won't be good for her health.
I've insisted that she get at least two or more opinions on what to do with the house, but the current realtor is an apparently good salesman as she hasn't taken the initiative to talk to anyone else.
Does anyone have any input or ideas on this? Any realtors out there that can give me some inside information, or at least an inside opinion?
Thanks so much.
Fortunately, all the kids just want it liquidated; it wouldn't be at a loss and the small gain won't be taxable.
yes — I have friends in another city who bought a new house before they sold their old one — then it took more thana year to sell the first — wiped out their finances.
Seems like common sense to, not to buy before you sell. I was shocked that they did this.
My Father sold his Mother’s San Francisco home after she died. He sold the home in 1996.
1996 turned out to be the bottom of the prior housing boom that peaked in 1991. I told my Father that he would be selling short if he sold. He sold anyway and missed the entire savage illogical housing boom that peaked in 2005/06.
You are asking if your mother should sell her San Francisco home or wait.
Ask yourself is housing at a bottom. I think we are not at bottom and prices are still going down.
Conclusion: sell now.
Ask yourself if housing is poised to surge and we are heading for a new boom. I don’t think a new housing boom is on the horizon. Housing could be down another decade at least.
Conclusion: sell now.
Ask yourself if we are heading for a deflationary depression. If you believe we are, then housing prices will crash as unemployment surges and economic activity plunges.
Conclusion: sell now.
Ask yourself if we are heading for solid double-digit inflation. Over the long term, housing ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS rises with the rate of inflation. Period, end of discussion. If you see meteoric inflation on the horizon, you want real assets including property.
Conclusion: do not sell now.
So there you are. Look in your crystal ball and make your best guess. I see high inflation coming down the path very far in the future. I see a depression in the meantime - maybe 10 years of depression. Maybe milder than the 30s but still a depression.
If I am right, then she will want to sell now, as there is no financial reason to wait for later.
You don’t say where she is moving to. Moving into a home? Moving in with you? Buying a new home? Moving into an apartment. Where is she supposed to live when she sells? Leaving that out could change the equation, but I doubt it.
If you think she should wait because “house prices are depressed now”, I don’t think they are going up soon and should fall further in the short term. You have nothing to gain by waiting a few years. A couple of decades when we get massive inflation, then yes, but not a few years.
I do not agree that 120 x monthly rent applies to the bay area. I would use a minimum of 150 x monthly rent and I don’t think 180 x monthly rent is unreasonable for an especially popular neighborhood or expecially nice home (with views, vanity zip codes, etc.)
You cant just treat San Francisco proper like suburban Atlanta. It doesn’t work that way. Yes, rents in the bay area are expensive and 120x monthly rent should work on paper, but it does not work even now.
During the housing bubble, some homes went for over 300 x monthly rent.
I agree with your principal but not your number. I would not expect to get a home in any peaceful, non-crime ridden area in San Francisco for less than 150 x monthly rent.
They'll tell ya a dozen times, lower the price, lower the price....lol...
All they are thinking of is their commission...It's really disgusting...(I know people in the RE biz)
Trust me, these folks are on the same level as used car salesmen and only think of their own wallets....
Tell them for every thousand you lower the price, you'll lower their sales commission $700.....Write it in the contract!
That will get them to shut up...lol
Very interesting! Saving your post.
This is such an interesting thread.
So many posters in threads about real estate don’t believe that the housing market is going anywhere, but DOWN, for quite some long time.
What happens to realtors if we do experience not another year, but rather, another decade of houses not selling with any resemblance of speed?
We recently learned that some houses in our city have come down in price by almost 30 percent since their initial listing less than half a year ago.
NOT huge numbers of properties, I just wrote, “some,” and really, for all I know, they were initially overpriced on purpose, hoping that the $8,000 housing credit would lure a buyer in.
Just learned yesterday that non-selling houses can be removed from the market, and then are re-listed on the housing market with a new MLS, making it ‘appear’ to be a new listing ...... having just learned about this yesterday, makes me think that maybe people are all playing a serious waiting game to see how far a price will plummet, before paying any serious attention to a truly new listing.
Sounds like a mine field, how can realtors possibly support themselves, isn’t their commission contigent upon the selling price?
Taking a house off the market and then putting it back on again a few days or weeks later is a trick used here to. It re-sets the ‘days-on-market’ clock so that prospective buyers won’t think it has been on the market for a long time. What a buyer has to do is to ask to see the ‘listing history.’ This will show you for how long it has really been for sale.
It might be a good idea for her to get an appraisal done by an independent appraiser (not someone the realtor recommends).
Bay area? Pushy salesman? Perhaps God is using this aggressive agent to save your mother's life, to get her outta there ASAP.
Thank you for the tip!
I didn’t know what the term is.
I noticed, however, in doing simple google searches on specific addresses that obviously this was going on, as the property records would not indicate a sale, but obviously the property was for sale the previous year, too.
When we first saw one example of this, our immediate reaction was more along the lines of.... why would anyone buy & sell a house SO soon.... when obviously it wasn’t a flipped house, as no changes whatsoever were in evidence.
I wonder how many of these stagnant, non-selling homes were initially over priced and by requesting the LISTING HISTORY that would be easy to determine.
It is off putting though, to get intrigued by a certain home, and then learn that no one has purchased it in over a year.
LOL
What is wrong with the house?
Maybe nothing....
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