Home sellers are setting ‘aspirational’ prices. Buyers have other ideas.

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Home sellers are setting ‘aspirational’ prices. Buyers have other ideas.

In the heart of the traditional spring homebuying season, sellers are enthusiastically listing. But increasingly, buyers just aren’t materializing.

Inventory of for-***** homes continues to surge in much of the country, but sales aren’t keeping up. In fact, they’re down from a year ago. In many cities, the shifting market has increasingly allowed buyers to be picky as homes stay on the market longer.

One driving factor: Sellers are aiming high with their listing prices, even if it means dropping them later. On Zillow, nearly 25% of listings had a price cut in April, the highest share since at least 2018, the listings platform said.

“Buyers have their choice, even though the market is stabilizing,” said Eve Metlis, a Realtor at Watson Realty Corp. in Orlando. In the central Florida city, listings are up 42% from a year earlier, bringing the market close to balanced between buyers and sellers. But sales are down 11%.

“A lot of sellers still think it’s 2021 or 2022,” she added. “I call it aspirational pricing.”

Brokerage Redfin found that the median newly listed home had a record-high list price of $469,729 in March but ultimately sold for 9% less. The gap between buyers and sellers hasn’t been that big since May 2020, when pandemic lockdowns were causing major market disruptions.

The mismatched pricing expectations reflect a growing divide in financial security between those who already own homes and those who are trying to gain access to the market for the first time this spring. Many sellers are in comfortable financial positions and have benefited handsomely from rising home equity values. In contrast, first-time buyers still face major affordability hurdles and an uncertain economic environment and are looking for deals.

“Even after price cuts, sellers are still in a pretty good position,” Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale said.

Compared to a year ago, buyers are doing at least a little better. Incomes are still generally rising, and mortgage rates are slightly lower than this time last year, helping boost buying power.

For-***** inventory nationwide was up about 30% in April compared to a year earlier, according to Realtor.com data, and more listings are likely on the way. Historically, inventory peaks each year in July or August before leveling off and then dropping in fall and winter.

Time on market, another closely watched metric, is also increasing. On average, homes stayed on the market for 50 days last month, four days longer than a year ago and 20 days longer than during the height of the pandemic buying frenzy in 2022.

Story Continues

“You can definitely tell that there’s a difference right now” between buyers and sellers, said Austin Moore, who sells homes in suburban Kansas City, Mo., and the college town of Warrensburg, Mo., about an hour to the east. “If you don’t price your home correctly from the start, it’s going to sit there.”

In the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village, Colo., Realtor Riley Wegner said buyers are gaining more bargaining power, particularly at the entry-level end of the market, where more first-timers participate. In Denver, those homes are usually listed around $500,000.

“There still are the homes that are moving, but I feel like it’s the homes that are priced exceptionally well and in very desirable locations,” Wegner said.

She’s now seeing more seller concessions, even in cases where homes haven’t been on the market for weeks and weeks. In one recent deal, her buyers offered the full list price on a $485,000 home but asked for an additional $10,700 in concessions. The sellers “accepted our offer — no questions asked — on the spot,” Wegner said.

In another transaction, her buyers won a house with an offer $3,000 below list price that included $10,000 in concessions.

In late March, Sadiyah Cook, 23, and her husband decided to start looking at what they could buy outside Philadelphia after being hit with a steep rent increase on their apartment. To stretch their modest savings, they targeted homes where sellers would cover their closing costs.

In Philadelphia and many other cities in the Northeast, the market still generally tilts in sellers’ favor as strict zoning requirements and little land to build on have perpetuated a housing shortage. New listings in the region are up but less than the national average, according to Zillow. And the average home there goes under contract in just eight days.

Still, four sellers on the Cooks’ target list of 15 homes agreed to the concessions. Most of those properties had been listed for over 30 days.

“Four people who were willing to do that — that made it very easy for us, but it is pretty competitive,” Cook said.

After touring their remaining options, they put in an offer on their favorite, a recently renovated 1,800-square-foot three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom home with a backyard and a large basement. It was accepted, and they closed last week.

“Sometimes you have to take that leap of faith,” Cook said. “That’s what we did, and it worked out for us.”

Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Home #sellers #setting #aspirational #prices #Buyers #ideas

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/