Steven Keefe, Broker/Owner
Coldwell Banker Sky Ridge Realty 
Arrowhead Home Loans, Inc.
www.mountainmoves.com
steve@mountainupdate.com
909.336.2131
Today I received an email from one of my agents who had a seller who was confused about current market conditions and how to price his property. What follows is the email I sent him.
Dear Agent,
Thanks for copying me on the correspondence from Mr. Seller, I would direct him to www.mountainupdate.com for some statistical information on our market. The following would be my comments after looking closely at his particular property. As we discussed the comparable sales to this property provide for an indicated value of mid to high 600's. Unfortunately, like with other areas of So. Cal, Lake Arrowhead has not experienced appreciation, in fact in nearly every instance properties purchased in the past 2 years are selling for considerably less than what the owners paid for them.
The properties that are moving quickly are the distressed and bank owned (foreclosure) properties. Mr. Seller missed the mark regarding pricing. Sellers that want to move their property need to list the property as close to their bottom line as they can bear. Padding the price will only prolong the agony. Properties that are selling are going out on average 97% of asking price because they have been priced correctly. There is too much inventory available for sellers to choose from in this range, financing is extremely tight over 500k, and there are too many motivated sellers in the market for a buyer to even look at an overpriced property.
Timing is more a function of pricing than anything. If something is priced 100k over the market, it isn't going to sell now, and it isn't going to sell in 2 years at that price. What we know is that properties that ask a lot, and reduce over time almost always trail the market and eventually sell for less than they would have if thew were not overpriced to begin with.
This may seem harsh, but the reality is that Mr. Seller must strongly consider pricing the property to sell, or just wait. It will do more harm than good to list the property above the market.
Naturally, there may be somebody out there that will contradict what I am saying here. It is unfortunate, that some Brokers are of the mind that they will list a property at any price, maybe a miracle will happen, or maybe they will grind the seller over time down on the price. Brokers that subscribe to that theory or practice don't admit it to a seller, but they will admit it to you and I. They are so desperate for a listing that they will say almost anything. Their results show it. Refer Mr. Seller to www.mountainupdate.com to see for himself what our competitors who promise higher sales prices actually do. The results speak for themselves, Jim, you me and our team have more sales than all other companies in our marketplace combined. In fact some of the companies that I hear people speak so highly of sell almost nothing.
This is very difficult market, and it will be so at least through this next year. Sellers deserve to and need to have accurate, professional information to act on. Sometimes it isn't pretty, but if someone wants to sell and net the highest proceeds possible, they need to be in tune with the market and they have to work with a Broker who is willing to tell them the truth.
Steve Keefe
Broker/Owner
Coldwell Banker Sky Ridge Realty
