Angela Johnson, Assoc Brkr GRI,ABR,ASR,SFR

Now don't get me wrong. I loved the ad. Very stylish, and as grand entrances go, premiering on the night of the Golden Globes shows.... style.

But then, you realize the style the ad guys are looking back at with such nostalgia and urging the public to rediscover was lost in part because of... oh, yeah, THE AUTO INDUSTRY BAIL-OUT. 

So if you good folks over on the Chrysler Board would be interested in helping me rediscover my inner style, feel free to send me a snazzy convertible as a thank you for my part in keeping you in your Lear jets.   

And you're welcome. 

     On melancholy gray days like these it's tough to remember we just started a new year, wah!  Thoughts wander to better days seen and to come

OR....

As a follow-up to my piece the other day on aggressive pricing, I thought it might be helpful to demonstrate the soundness of the strategy by sharing activity reports on a current listing.

When the home first went on the market in November 2010, the homeowners had opted for the "middle of the pack" approach. By New Year's they were ready to reduce the price and after some discussion agreed to make a statement with a signficant $20,000 reduction.

The numbers read like textbook:

WARNING: CONTENTS OF THIS POST CONTAIN STATISTICS OF A GRAPHIC NATURE. NOT SUITABLE FOR DELICATE CONSTITUTIONS.

Standard operating procedure these days when I deliver the news as to estimated sale price range is to open my arms wide to catch the shocked homeowner mid-fall during the fainting spell. After the homeowner has regained consciousness, his/her knee-jerk reaction is to accuse me and the profession of attempting to underprice the home in the hopes of an "easy" sale.

Let me preface my reply by saying a) you may find my language blunt, but conditions preclude any sugar-coating; and b) in our local market, there is no such animal as the easy sale at present, and the higher the price range the greater the degree of difficulty due to increasing numbers of unsold inventory and a diminishing pool of potential buyers.

Before you tell me "Pshaw, you're exaggerating for effect" consider the following statistics straight from the Greater Hudson Valley MLS database:

Assuming you are selling in this climate due to job relocation or a number of other personal reasons that necessitate the move, or after a consult with your financial planner you've determined this is the most advantageous time for your to purchase your next home, I'm also assuming you'd prefer I market the home so as to maximize your sale price while minimizing the number of days on market and by extension your monthly carrying costs of mortgage, taxes, utilities, maintenance, and so on. That's a reasonable assumption, wouldn't you agree?

When all is said and done, you control how many days your home spends on the market and ultimately, its saleability. Yes, you the homeowner; not the buyer, and not the real estate agents.

If you are of the "I'm not giving it away" school of thought, you can count on your home languishing unseen despite all the bamboo flooring, the cleaning, photo re-takes, Busby Berkeley production-value virtual tour, open houses, broker caravans, print advertising geared toward geographic areas that do not produce any significant number of buyers in our area and toward niche buyers who, as a rule, would not be interested in your home. Time is your enemy. The longer on the market, the stronger the scent of blood in a buyer's nostrils, the lower the offer, if one is produced at all. The upside is your popularity will soar with your neighbors as you make the pricing of their homes that much more attractive, thereby helping them to sell their homes.

If you opt for the herd mentality and price it in the middle of the pack, you've abdicated the the decision-making process squarely to the buyer who, armed with the wide array of information available to him through his agent or from his own online research (over 90% of today's buyers use the internet when home-shopping) can pick and choose at his leisure which candidates he'd like to view. After all, depending on your property-type, he has a year to over a year and a half of inventory to peruse. While you may have a recent appraisal indicating a value in this range, consider the fact that many homes are not selling at appraised value.

Or, you can choose to take the lead in this dance by pricing the home aggressively. Which translates to the lower end of the projected sale price and below what your competition is asking. Buyers, who have been doing alot of perusing as mentioned previously, are well aware of asking prices. So when the listing for your home arrives in their inboxes, interest is generated instantly together with a keener sense of urgency to pay a visit to view it. I can hear the groans of the "giving it away" chorus. Weigh the worst case scenarios between any possible underpricing vs overpricing; underpricing is guaranteed to generate multiple showings within a short period of time, may produce multiple offers which in turn may get you closer to the appraised value. Whereas, overpricing will lengthen the property's stay on the market by a year. Calculate a year's carrying cost on the home against any tenuous claim of a lost profit as a result of a quick sale. Hmmmm.

So, as I am fond of saying, help me to help you. As agents, we have an unprecedented variety of media within which to market your home. I've got high-def photos and virtual tour, Realtor.com, a company website, my own website, a syndication of over twenty other websites, a dedicated website for your home, text messaging and QR coding from the sign, Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps, mobile phone apps and whatever new app a clever designer comes up with tomorrow ;-) at my disposal to enhance and maximize the reach of my ad copy. Work with your team when it comes to the pricing issue!

If you are a homeowner behind on your mortgage payments, I urge you to contact myself or your agent of choice to assist you ASAP. We probably have more experience with the situation than you, can outline various scenarios and direct you to other seasoned professionals you'll want on your team when communicating and negotiating with your lender. We are here to help, whether the wind blows us towards pushing a loan modification through for you or a short sale to halt a foreclosure proceeding.

For additional reading, an excellent article on the topic is "Why Real Estate is Always a Sellers' Market" by Joe Manausa.

I had previously posted as a reference tool for Orange and Rockland County homeowners statistics on 2010 market activity. This installment features a 2009/2010 comparison for Orange, Rockland and Ulster counties.

To see 2010 stats broken down by town or to review an historical retrospective 2006-2010 click here.