How To Sell Your House in Today's Market

By Sally O'Boyle

If your market is anything like the Key West market, you are sitting on your property, waiting for your flush buyer. And you have been for some time. Frustration has probably set in. You need to sell before actual panic takes hold.

There is hope. The formula is ancient: product and price. Sellers who really want to sell, need to lower prices till they generate activity (i.e., phone calls and showings) and keep lowering till they generate action (i.e., offers).

It is now officially a Buyer's market and this is true in all but a very few U.S. markets. In a Buyer's market, the good deals sell first. The formula we have used successfully for getting showings and offers on a stagnant property is to: 1. Lower the price 10% at a time until the phone starts ringing = ACTIVITY. 2. Keep lowering the price 10% at a time until you get offers = ACTION.

How often? Every 2 weeks is not too often to lower the price, but timing is dependent on time of year and seller's motivation. In your busiest season, when you have the most activity, every two weeks might not be fast enough! You will know you are close when the phone starts ringing.
You'll know you are really close when you get offers. You'll know you are there when you have a signed contract.

To get from contract to closing, be willing to negotiate. Fix anything the buyer needs to have fixed to have a safe home (termite treatment, upgrade electric, plumbing repairs, sound roof, dead trees limbs down.) Remain calm.

In a Seller's market, sellers are insulted by offers lower than 5% off the asking price. In today's market, you will definitely get offers lower than this. If you are insulted by any offers, you need attitude adjustment. Nobody cares if you are insulted.

There are buyers in our market right now and they want to buy. The hold up is price. Sellers are still in denial about the direction of the market - they can't let go of the big number and they think any minute this baby is going to turn around.

Unfortunately, this ship is too big and wieldy. And it's run into an iceberg called Subprime Mortgages. It's just not going to be able to bounce back. Last I looked in our MLS, there was a four year inventory on the market... Usually, we have four to six months. And with so many
Fortunately, REALTORs I've spoken with lately are coming to grips with reality. No paycheck will do that to a person. Trust me, I have first-hand knowledge of this. Before I left Key West for Costa Rica in January '06, my income was down 90%. Twenty months later, my brethren back home are starting to realize this is more than a slow patch. Much more. As REALTORs stop cheer-leading, reality will spread.

Reality is the only hope for a turnaround in this market. Inventory has to clear out. A lot of it will clear out via foreclosure. That's a fact. If you are a seller who can still avoid foreclosure, take the money you can get and move on.

Today, the price has to make sense to the buyer. For sellers stuck in 2004's market when seller's ruled, today's price will NOT make sense to you. It will be shocking. But for sellers who really want to sell, it's time to bite the bullet. It's not your market anymore.

Sally O'Boyle, Recovering REALTOR®, packed up her family and 30 years of a life in Key West on basically a whim and a prayer and moved to Costa Rica for a year. It's been almost two and they can't leave. Life in Costa Rica is something... breathtaking, frustrating, hilarious. Details here: http://www.abroadincostarica.com

Still watching and working the Key West market, mostly from afar, occasionally on the ground, Sally reports on that market's ups and downs at http://www.so-real.com