Vashon Homes & Events from Go! Real Estate

Vashon Real Estate: Home Prices

November 5, 2008 at 8:50 pm Leave a comment

The Seattle Times reported on November 2, 2008, that 4 out of 10 Seattle area homes have had their asking price discounted in response to the state of the current housing market.  According to Zip Realty, a national real-estate brokerage which analyzed housing trends for the past three months, most cuts were in the 1 to 5% range.  The deepest cuts were on Mercer Island where homes sold for 91.8 per cent of their asking price.  Zip Realty provides no analysis for the price discounts.  However, fundamental economic theory suggests that the supply/demand ratio still favors buyers in the current market.  With Federal financial action, intended to strengthen the availability of mortgage lending, beginning to trickle down to local lenders, it is difficult to forecast how long theis buyers’ market will endure.

Zip Realty found that the percentage of Seattle area homes subject to price reductions has increased 2.9% compared with the same period in 2007.  Zip also discovered that Seattle has experienced one of the largest inventory increases among major metropolitan areas, 8.8 % more than the same period in 2007.

Factors to consider in setting a home sale price include:

• whether your home is in top shape for sale, as buyers know there are competitive deal available
• the availability of similar homes in the neighborhood creates price competition
• local foreclosures depress the price of other for-sale homes
• and, the biggest reason, sellers initially list a house too high, which knocks a seller out of the window of opportunity for first-time listings

Entry filed under: • Real Estate, Housing Market News, Real Estate Statistics. Tags: Seattle home finance, Seattle mortgages, Seattle real estate, Vashon home finance, Vashon home sales, Vashon Mortgages, Vashon real estate.