« « International Clean Up Weekend - Greenstreets NYC | Home | Does This Co-op Building Permit Washer-Dryers in the Apartment? » »

Sometimes A Fantasy - How Did You Come Up With That Asking Price?

October 8, 2007

asking-prices.jpgWhat’s an Asking Price? It’s the price a home seller hopes to get for their home. But a more important question is, “How the heck did they come up with that asking price?” That’s the question all home buyers should be asking the real estate agent or home seller. Have you ever asked this question? If not, you should.

When a home is being prepared for market by a real estate agent, the agent should go over comparable closed, pending and active sales data with the home seller. Together, they come up with an Asking Price that hopefully is based on current market conditions and not fantasy. But how does a home buyer know if the asking price is fantasy or reality? Simple - they have to ask for the data.

The listing real estate agent should be able to provide you the data that shows how they arrived at that Asking Price. If they can’t or wont, then that’s a big red flag. Maybe they just pulled a number out of the air or they just didn’t do their homework. Either way, you’ll need to analyze that data to determine what your bid for the apartment will be. By working with a competent buyer broker, you can be sure that you’ll have the information necessary to make an informed offer for any apartment. Don’t buy the fantasy.


Source: YouTube Billy Joel - Sometimes a Fantasy

When searching for a home, we pretty much have a certain price range that we have in mind. This range is usually based on what we can comfortably afford to buy based on our current and future financial situation. A good idea is to also include homes that are 20% over your comfortable price range. Maybe these home are overpriced. Maybe, under the right circumstances, you could make a deal with a “motivated” seller. This is especially true if the apartment has been sitting on the market for an extended period of time and has had a number of price reductions. With they right amount of data on your side, anything is possible.

Always remember to ask about the asking price, for it may be a fantasy.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Related Posts

Posted by Rudolph D. Bachraty III | Filed Under NYC Real Estate 

Comments

5 Responses to “Sometimes A Fantasy - How Did You Come Up With That Asking Price?”

  1. Lydia on October 8th, 2007 4:31 pm

    Your right. There is a huge inventory of homes for sale here in California.
    There still the Sellers here in California that are in Fantasy land
    with there homes wayyyyyyyyyyy over priced. they actually think there’s a chance to sell there home.
    Shame on the agents that take that listing just for the sake of getting there sign up.

    FYI- Homes under $ 300-400k is what’s selling now.

  3. kiosk on October 8th, 2007 7:38 pm

    hi lydia!

    in new york they call it “buying a listing”. which by the way, is a disservice to the seller client not to mention a breach of your fiduciary duty. i.e. knowingly overpricing a home. but that’s a whole other conversation.

    unfortunately, some home sellers are still in fantasy land. without the proper guidance from a competent real estate broker with the data to prove that their in fantasy land, i’m afraid things won’t be getting any better soon.

    thanks for the heads up - are those starter homes?

  5. Lydia on October 8th, 2007 8:15 pm

    Yes . That price range is starter homes in smaller outskirt cities.
    I am dealing with these first time buyers & some investors.
    We’ve had thousands of agents leaving there jobs in order to survive.
    What is going on in New York?

  7. kiosk on October 8th, 2007 8:45 pm

    generally speaking, $300 - $400K will get you a small studio in most areas of manhattan - under 500sf

    agents that were just order takers should leave. the seasoned real estate pro’s should be doing ok.

    in nyc, there is a slowdown. i can really sense that agents are hungry as are the sellers. buyers are jittery. we’re in a holding pattern in many areas - kind of like the game of chicken - who will blink first.

  9. Chuck Teller on October 9th, 2007 3:10 pm

    Our game, Price Me Now (part of Realius’s suite of Fantasy Real Estate games), which is still in private beta, will have a component that will allow agents to put a house in the game and collect a large sample of guesstimates from people in the local market. Consider it an instant market analysis. We will do the hard work of organizing and presenting the data to the agent so that they can easily present it to their client. This will be excellent information from which the agent and homeowner can develop their list price strategy. They make the call if they want to list it high, low or right at the average. The data will show you the complete distribution of price guesses. We call it Fantasy, but it is real in the end.

    Chuck

Got something to say?





rebny.jpg