Whaddya know? Pricing Your Fort Lauderdale Home Or Condo Right Actually Does Work!

Fort Lauderdale real estate should be priced correctly

While there may indeed be that speck of white light in the tunnel, I would not go out and make plans to celebrate just yet. Based upon numbers released yesterday from the Florida Association of Realtors the sales of existing homes increased in the Fort Lauderdale real estate market and throughout Broward County by 4 percent in July.

The Realtor group attributed the increase in sales to buyers in the market finally responding to the lowering of home prices. While the number of homes sold only rose by 4% it was the area’s first upward bump in sales on a year-over-year basis since October 2006.

The median home price is still in the tank as home prices fell almost 20%. the median home price in the Fort Lauderdale real estate market dropped from $373,700.00 last year to $303,500.00 now.

So have we hit the proverbial “bottom” of the market that so many seem to be waiting for? Apparently not! Most analysts predict that the housing decline likely will continue well into 2009. The simple immutable laws of supply and demand pretty much are at work here in the Fort Lauderdale home sales market.

We have talked about it many times and actually warned a lot of our fellow real estate agents that if their clients don’t absolutely have to sell right now, then their homes should not be on the market.

The seller “looking to see what they can get” is going to be a bit embarrassed. Many, if not most of the market pricing is currently being driven by the tidal wave of foreclosures and bank owned properties in the Fort Lauderdale real estate market. These homes are being aggressively priced by lenders seeking to liquidate the inventory off of their books or by homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure via a short sale.

The average homeowner can’t compete price-wise with the discounting taking place in the market. Sellers often are seeing offers well below asking price and inexperienced agents are not educating their sellers and the myth of the low ball offer is perpetuated. Here’s a hint…there’s no such thing as a low ball offer in a buyer’s market!

“For the average seller, these are tough times,” said Mike Larson, a housing analyst with Weiss Research in Jupiter. “There are always people out there willing to undercut you, making your life that much harder.”

“People are responding to lower prices,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. But he said there is “too much uncertainty” about the housing market’s future to mark a definite bottom.

Thanks Larry for the heads up…so does that mean the $40 Million advertising campaign that was panned a long time ago is actually wrong? Will the NAR take culpability for telling the average homebuyer that “now’s a great time to buy”?

How about just re-tooling to campaign and telling the truth. “Now is a great time to buy a home…if you know what you are doing, buy on your terms and offer the price you feel will protect you as prices continue to drop.”

Now there would be a campaign I could get behind and support. That and..”it’s a great time to buy a low priced foreclosure if you know what you are doing and know how to due your due diligence or know a real estate agent who can guide you through the process”.

That would make a lot more sense, but alas, a lot more real estate agents would be out of work.

I wonder if that’s necessarily a bad thing!