A busy Monday

I wasn't going to write another post until tomorrow but so many new properties came on the market today that I wanted to make sure to put them on this blog. Click here to view the properties that came on the market today.

One property closed. It was listed for 829K and sold for 813K and is again a waterfront home. As I said that before the waterfront home are the best selling type of properties right now. Click here to see the property that closed.

You have probably noticed that properties are selling very close to their asking price. In my opinion the reason for that is that sellers are now listing their properties at a more realistic price (Meaning for what similar homes in the neighborhood have sold for lately). We also have the largest inventory of listings in years and in order to stand out a listing now needs to be priced competitively. I tell my sellers that it is wiser to list their property for very close to the lowest price they are willing to take and then not be as negotiable when an offer comes in.This is good because for a while we had a problem with overpriced listings that of course were not selling because they were overpriced. The problem with that is that when owner A listed their property for 1 Million even though the last sale for a similar property in the neighborhood was for 700K and neighbor B now wants to list their home; the realtor will bring Comparables of homes that have sold and are for sale and for what price. All owner B would see is that the neighbors house is for sale for 1 Million and "if that house is worth 1 Million than owner Bs house is worth at least that much" because really his house even has a nicer kitchen. But an asking price does not determine the value of a home. A property is worth how much somebody is willing to pay for it. All owner B could see was 1 Million and he proceeded to list his house maybe for 999K just to stay a little bit under owner As' home. As other houses would come on the market, owner C and D etc. would do the same as Owner B and some owners put their house on the market because they heard for how much owner A,B and C property is for sale and "if they can get that much for their home" then they are willing to sell as well. But buyers are no fools and educate themselves about past sales in the neighborhood. You can guess what happened: these properties would sit and sit on the market. (Again in my opinion) this is part of the reason why we have a flooded market right now.When you are looking at properties for sale now you get a much more realistic idea for Real Estate values in the Keys because they are now (most of the time) listed for close to what they are actually selling for. Click here to see what has gone under contract. Again a waterfront home.

Today a new potential buyer called me. He told me that he wanted to buy something in the Keys because he is in Minnesota and it's cold in Minnesota!There is one of your reasons why the Keys will always be a desirable area! Even though I think it's cold here right now at 65 degrees; really I don't even remember what cold is.