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Actual sale price is what matters; not asking, listing, or wishing price


               
2011 Feb 10, 1:26am   16,947 views  44 comments

by Quant HF Mgr   follow (0)  

Indirectly I have a vested interest in watching the San Carlos, California housing market closely. There's a realtor in that area that makes a big deal about "percent of asking price" and other stats pertaining to listing / wishing prices.

His logic is highly flawed. The actual sales prices are what matter, not asking prices. Asking prices are completely subjective and are often not founded in reality. For instance, there's a house on Sunset that's been chasing the market down for over a year. Their initial "asking price" was really a "wishing price" - so now that their current asking price is 25.02% lower than their original asking price doesn't tell anyone anything other than the seller & likely their realtor were way off base to begin with. Once the home sells - and the transaction is fully complete and closed - there will be an actual sales price that can give us relevant statistical information.

Another example: let's say someone manages a $357 million quantitative hedge fund and he wants to sell part of his long position in Cotton futures. If Cotton is currently selling at 1356.00 but the manager has a "wishing" price of 1450.00.....no one cares. No one takes note; they wouldn't waste their time. The HF manager is far, far away from the market, and a professional trader looking at the book would think, "What the hell is that person thinking" and continue on with her day.

Only in real estate, i.e. Realtorese, have I seen such unprofessional and uneducated habits so prolifically on display...

#housing

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38   thomas.wong1986   @   2011 Feb 14, 12:24pm  

solver says

Comps are destroying these otherwise decent neighborhoods. Pocket deals that are going to cash sales are contributing to the low comp prices too.

no! "comps" are going back to prce equilibruim where they should have been. The over glamorization of homes is what is killing communities. No matter what the banks do by holding back it will not solve the affordbility issues, they may not be able to tolerate a free fall in prices, but prices will nether the less fall anyway back to long term trends.

Enjoy lower prices in the future, coming to your neighborhood soon!

39   solver   @   2011 Feb 14, 3:16pm  

LOL! I agree. It just pisses me off that even in the darkest hours of our economy, that these bastards still will not let an light in. Imagine if we all had to bid on milk... with silent bids that were over inflated just because the demand outweighed the supply. What's worse is that they're controlling the supply like drug pushers. Give them a little and keep them hooked.

If there's anything that needs reform and change it's getting rid of these crooks by prosecuting them all like they did in the past.

40   commonsense   @   2011 Feb 14, 7:42pm  

You know what I do with these people? WALK AWAY. It's that simple. Why are so many so desperate to go into debt? No one NEEDS to buy ANYTHING let alone overpay for it. Only a fool does that.

I once had someone pull the "Well, I DO have someone offering XYZ" which of course was higher than I was considering. I was so fed up, knowing it was complete bullshit from her demeanour and expression, I told her point blank, “Then you better sell it to them" and walked out of the door, with the dope running close behind me.

41   maire   @   2011 Feb 14, 11:04pm  

Saw in a r.e. blog yesterday that here in the KC metro area the shadow inventory was about 8 years.

Yeah, I can't figure out what the banks are doing unless it's all a result of sheer inertia. They're so big that no one group/person can see the need to take action and since they've been bailed out once, why worry?

But, think! When they own these huge swaths of land due to multiple foreclosures then they can dictate how they should be used. Medieval barons, redux! Isn't that what WF (in the above comment by solver)
is doing?

Patrick, I love the mustache! And, you've got a Celtic soul.

42   FortWayne   @   2011 Feb 15, 6:46am  

maire says

Of course the actual sale price is often not what’s reported as the selling price either. The price reported is lower so then the real estate taxes are lower. The rest is cash under the table.

Sale price should be reported on the county assessor. It might not show it correctly on any MLS listing though since it is not a legal record.

43   kismet98   @   2011 Feb 24, 9:55am  

here's one for the books. As unbelievable as it seems, the tax assessor in our small rural county has decided to use real estate listings as a basis for assessment. He claims that there were too few sales for the past four years (we are on a 4 year reassessment cycle) and therefore he has no basis other than to use the asking prices for homes currently for sale. Indeed there have been very few sales and for those poor souls who had to sell, they sold for 20,30, and even 40% of assessed value. SUrely this cannot be legal---what do you think we should do?

44   jaded   @   2011 Feb 28, 12:35pm  

I was watching HGTV's my first sale. A couple with a condo in DC is moving to Denver and wants to sell. They refused to go lower than $410K because the owner "refuses to lose money on the condo" and "refuses to let the other sellers in his complex set his price" where bigger units with more bathrooms were selling at $20k less than his lowered asking price. They decided to rent it out.

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