[Dreaming] Asking prices of Charleston homes for sale
Some sellers must be dreaming when pricing their homes for sale in Charleston or they've slept through reports in the media that homes have declined in value in the past few years.
Just the other day, I was showing homes to a client and there was one home that they especially liked and they wanted me to find out how long it has been on the market, when the sellers bought the home and how much they paid and the prices that similar homes in the neighborhood have sold for recently to determine a realistic offering price.
It didn't surprise me to find that the home has been on the market for quite a while listed with several different Charleston real estate agents and that the asking price is about 20 percent more than the sellers paid in spring 2007 which most everyone will acknowledge was the top of the market. Please note that there is no indication that any value was added by updating or renovation. And the reality is that some sellers apparently don't care what they paid and when or how much their home is currently worth, they just want to sell their home at break even or for a small (or possibly large) profit.
So what are these sellers thinking. And not to let the listing agents off the hook because why are they agreeing to list the home at such ridiculously high listing price. Surely, any buyers agent who has an interested client is going to do the same research as me and come to the same conclusion. And the home will just sit unsold.
And if someone was silly enough to overpay, would the home appraise for the inflated selling price.
Photo courtesy of flickr, Eowyn's Dream by ColinJCampbell (beautiful, isn't it)