'New' to the market

If you're a smart buyer, it generally shouldn't really matter if a property is "new" to the market or not - you buy it for what you think it's worth.

I spent about a year looking for a condo in Boston, and what really bothered me was seeing some condo developments originally listing units for sale with a parking spot, and then after not being able to move those units "reducing the price!" but also removing the parking spot -- and when you factor in how much parking is worth, the actual price for the unit would end up being higher than if you had bought the unit with a parking spot. That, to me, is a scam.

This practice is so transparent, I don't know why the seller's agent attempt it. Any good buyer's agent will expose the tactic to their client.

Its transparent, and as #1 said, a smart buyer should ignore it and focus on underlying value.

But its a detriment to real estate agents - the practice reflects poorly on the whole profession, making it look like the truth is secondary to reeling in suckers. As such, I'd think real estate agents would want to ban the practice.

What makes it truly interesting is the signalling aspect. It shows how much of a backlog of sellers out there there are who are resistant to selling at current prices, and optimistic (for god knows what reason) that prices will go up.

When those sellers finally give up, Boston real estate prices will head down.

The real estate people continue with the same tactic , Any lie told to make a sale is OK. I am convinced that many real estate people are pathalogical liars .

It's just a continuation of the many shoddy and fraudulent practices that the real estate industry foists on buyers. One they should have required, for full disclosure, is the following: a full history of all price changes and all listing periods. A buyer will buy the property if it meets their needs at the price they want to pay BUT if you had the full information that the property was taking a long time to sell then that would very well affect your offer price.

I like the "One weekend only! All offers must be in my 11:59 Sunday night!" sales where a house is reduced by ~$15k, then when nobody bites/is dumb enough to fall for that scheme, they put the price back up to where it's been sitting and rotting for the past 356 days. Excellent tactics!

If I was the NAR, I'd mandate showing the history of pricing.

Real estate make money by making sales, not having property languish on the market. Hence, letting sellers know that moving the prices up and down, etc. is going to show to the public would encourage them to get their price right the first time instead of chasing the market.

Funny, considering how often you hear Realtors(R) say, "But we follow a code of ethics." Uh huh.

Calling a listing "new" is just another way real estate agents try to keep information from becoming transparent. An agent can easily see whether the property has been listed before, but a consumer can't. Probably a good basis for another lawsuit.

Realtors are worse liars then a bunh of used car salesmen - most of them are a morally corrupt bunch folks that would turn on their family to close a deal. It’s truly sad that this practice is acceptable to "Realtors," who spend days on these blogs proclaiming their ethics. Bah hum bug.

I'm just wondering... Is there no way to easily look up MLS history by address (pulling up both price history and listing/de-listing dates)? I say 'by address' because I assume the same property re-listed would get a new MLS #...

Right now, can I, as just some random guy with an internet connection, look up that info on a house? I think If anyone can easily see all the past and current MLS data for a property it would be hard to trick anyone with "new listings".

"Honey, I did a quick check... That house 'new to the market' we we looked at. I found out it was on the market only 6 months ago at a lower price. I wonder what's going on here?"

100% agree with everyone above. New spin on "Curiosity killed the cat" could be "Transparency killed the Traditional Real Estate agent." The (old school, worn out, ineffective on a large scale) dishonest tactics still used are obvious to everyone and I think we can all agree they are no longer scalable and therefore those agents will inevitably fail. Not to mention real estate websites (similar to mine) are now showing consumers "property history" - data feeds - which about 9 times out of 10 expose the "new listing" tactic as it shows the full listing history, including how many times the seller switched agencies, changed asking price, and withdrew or canceled and re-listed, the property. There are so many disgraceful tactics practiced by desperate traditional agents that help no one (not even their client!). Luckily the internet is one step ahead: exposing them and educating consumers one at a time.

I would really like to hear from a listing agent who uses this "new listing" tactic to respond?

I don't think the buyer's psychology is to pay what they think the house is worth. Buyers want to pay LESS than the house is worth. I disagree that a smart buyer doesn't pay attention to how long the house has been on the market. A smart buyer interprets long times on market as a signal that the seller is probably getting desparate, and that they can low-ball the offer without risk of losing out on the house. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with pulling a house off the market and re-listing it any more than I see something wrong with a buyer low-balling an offer just because the house has been on the market a long time.

Since it is the "relisted" price that is used as the base for determining the spread between asking and selling prices, this practice results in misleading statistic of selling to listing price differential (a smaller differential than if the original price were used).

Ugh.

If there is one thing that annoys me even more than sketchy real estate agents, it’s sloppy journalists.

The writer describes the South End as "once hot?" To wit, South End condo sales over the past 3 months:

Average Sale Price: $649,755
Average Market Time: 68.27

Maybe it’s just that we subscribe to different definitions of “hot.” That said, I'd hate to see what hot is if these numbers don't make the cut.

(and yes, I realize that I’m giving positive reinforcement for substandard journalism by commenting and thus creating buzz…)

If it didn't make a difference then realtors wouldn't do it. The fact of the matter is that the longer a property languishes on the market, the greater perceived bargaining power buyers have. The bottom line is that the whole "days on market" detail is provided for the sake of BUYERS, not SELLERS. So consider what the average buyer's perception is when they see "new listing" - clearly the buyer is thinking that the property is, in fact, new to the market.

The re-listing thing is a total scam.

Transparency killed the Traditional Real Estate agent
Great news is scummy tactics are no longer scalable and ultimately those agents WILL fail. Bad news is they aren't fully extinct (yet) and we have to (still) waste our time writing blogs and comments to uncover their tricky ways. The internet continues to simultaneously expose these agents and educate consumers. Transparent websites will strip these agents of their ability to, what we call, lie and, what they call, play with words to make a buck. As an example some real estate websites (like mine) are giving consumers "property history" - via data feeds - (among every other available property info), which 9 times out of 10 exposes the real "new" to market listing versus the "new listing." Property history shows every detail of that properties time-line: withdrawn, price changes, agency changes, canceled, back on market, etc, and calculates the total days on the market not just the time from the latest "new" re-listing.

I am still waiting for a listing agent to write and defend their "new listing" tactics ... Anyone out there?

It might be a dirty little trick, but if it's not actually doing anything, then why get your panties in a bind? Has this trick worked on anyone? Probably not. Most people are too smart. I'm not saying Realtors aren't lying scum. I'm just saying that this trick is minor in comparison to some of the other tricks they use.

This is happening for 2 reasons:
1). A "fresh" listing is easier to sell for more money. If it has been on the market for a long time, people automatically think something is wrong with the listing. That and the mere fact that it hasn't sold for a long time gives the buyer more leverage in negotiating a lower price.
2). When you are in a declining market, the price of the property keeps getting lowered, and REs absolutely HATE seeing that properties are being sold for X dollars (or percent) below the asking price where X is getting larger and larger because it affects their later sales of other properties when everyone else wants that large discount.
Simple solution to both problems, just re-list at the lower price rather than lowering the price on the existing listing. Totally unethical, but not even the slightest bit surprising considering how the RE business is run.
The simple solution is (like commenter #1 said) to buy the house based on its merits, and also to never negotiate based on statistics that are controlled and manipulated by the RE industry.

As a realtor, I understand your complaint, while it is true that a relisted home is listed as "new", the days on the market reflects the original listing date. Any buyers broker will and should tell their clients how long a property has been on the market, I don't know if days on market is available to the general public or just real estate agents. When a lisiting is expired, a new lisitng agreement needs to be signed which is why a home is listed as new. The general buyer population should not be fooled, which is why MLS instituded the days on market change.

Any good buyer's agent know this and presents it to the buyer.

Luckily there are sites out there where you can find the history of a house's price. RE agents stink

First the NAR discontinues their real estate blog where they attempted to put a positive spin on the collapsing market and now they are trying to prevent the practice of re-listing homes. Wow, is the NAR really starting to get a conscience?

Quit your whining...Any good buyer's agent would pull the listing history of a listing. Also, if you're like so MANY potential buyers (my wife & I included) on the sidelines waiting for the right opportunity, then you notice this anyway...and the same crappy property you didn't want to see the last time it was listed will be similarly ignored the second/third/fourth time around.

People love to fault Realtors but you need not look further than buyers and sellers to find a bunch of liars. If you don't like a Realtor complain to the State Board. If a seller or buyer lies to you then it's just 'how it is.' Case in point: no buyer would accurately discloses how long they've been looking for a house.

All that being said, the sellers agent is just that "working in the best interest of the seller" Not the Buyer, having said that if a listing is on the market for a long period of time and both the Seller and agent want to try different marketing tactics that may be an option. But as someone else earlier mentioned the days on the market are still on the listing so even if you cancel a listing and make it new the days of the market still remain that is why it is important to have representation as a Seller and as a Buyer so you have someone looking out for your best interest. But if you were in the Sellers shoes and needed to sell your house you may try it. Not all realtors are liars.

I follow the real estate market, and I see many FSBO's “re-list” their homes like they are new on the market (and for more money) similar to what some listing agents do. Does this make all FSBO's the "scum of the earth" and "pathalogical (sic) liars" just like some are calling all real estate agents? Such extreme exaggerations seem pretty hateful and unfair.

Come on Scott, you can do better than just set up another inflammatory real estate agent bashing topic. It's cheap and easy, gets a lot of posts, and makes you instantly hip and popular, I know... but I expect you to try to be more thorough, fair, and balanced, and set a professional tone.

There are plenty of agents who don't do this "new listing" practice, and only in part because it is so obvious. It seems very likely that some see this selling technique as less than ethical.

More than re-listings, I see too many listed homes hang on for months and months. Some listings linger on for a year, or more, and are never pulled because the seller wants what the seller wants. And there are some listings that are just pulled (presumably until the market "recovers") because they don't sell for what the seller wants.

Inventory is too large, and only realistic pricing will improve things. Complaining and exaggerating about the re-listing practice is not really going to improve the situation much.

I hope to see less of this kind of torch and pitchfork bait from you.

To me a real estate agent is nothing more than a rebadged car sales person. These people make their living from commission of a property sale so it's in their interest to get the best price possible. If you want insight into this, and many more things, read Freakonomics. Bottom line, it's your money (as a buyer), do the research yourself. All this information is out there. In the age of the internet, you can find anything. Go to town hall and pull the previous sales of the house, find out what other properties in the neighborhood have sold for etc. If this is suppose to be your largest purchase of your life (ok, i've done it 3 times now), why would you rely on anyone else to tell you. Especially a group of people that are not governed by anything - no rules by the govenment, no oversight, etc. At least you have some control. You know what you get and spend on a car (the second largest purchase), but not the history of the house you want to buy. It's your own fault. Trust me, i don't like any realtor practice, i don't trust them - they are in part to blame for this credit crisis. They are the ones that helped drive the prices up on these houses - created a false market and a lot of people fell for it (me included). But i don't blame them for buying a house that's $50k to $100k overpriced - that's my fault - they didn't force my hand nor are they forcing yours. Do the research.

Any good buyers agent would do the research and let their client know the complete history of the property. This type of stunt fools no one. All it does is allow the property to show up again in the MLS email that an agent may automatically be sending based on only new listings to their client.

I definitely agree with all the comments about price and the shadiness of distorting the 'days on the market'. Let me ask a different question though.

How does this practice distort the housing numbers as reported in economic indicators? As a simple explanation - if a house is on the market for a full quarter, that's one house for sale, with 90 days on the market. Let's say a RE keeps pulling it on and off - so 1 house on the market in that quarter becomes 3 houses on the market, each one only listed for 2 weeks (so they must be selling).

Can a stunt like that, done enough, make the numbers for a neighborhood better than they really are???

If Real Estate agents, as a whole, don't like the reputation they are developing, they should act to change it. Its clear the Realtor(TM) code of ethics has achieved nothing.

I know many good, serious real estate agents. But the reputation didn't come out of nowhere. And pretending it isn't there won't make it go away.

"People love to fault Realtors but you need not look further than buyers and sellers to find a bunch of liars. If you don't like a Realtor complain to the State Board. If a seller or buyer lies to you then it's just 'how it is.' Case in point: no buyer would accurately discloses how long they've been looking for a house."

Why wouldn't a buyer disclose how long they've been looking for a house?? It has nothing to do with anything. Besides, when a listing broker actually provides the length of time a property has been on the market using the old "re-listing" trick, they are actively misrepresenting the truth. Nobody cares how long a buyer has been looking because it doesn't factor in to the negotiations. If realtors aren't going to provide you with the true number of days a property has been listed for, why provide that information in the first place? Pull it off the listing if you can't be honest about it.

DC, actually, in many areas inventory is low (not high).

"To me a real estate agent is nothing more than a rebadged car sales person. These people make their living from commission of a property sale so it's in their interest to get the best price possible. If you want insight into this, and many more things, read Freakonomics."

Actually, that's not exactly what Freakonomics says. They say it's more in the realtor's interest to get the sale done quickly than for the highest price. The point is that realtors interests do not align perfectly with the sellers they represent and that's a problem. Let's say you're a realtor and you're trying to move a house. For the purposes of this example we'll assume that there is no buyer's agent to have to split the commission with. If you get a buyer in the door for say, $375K then the commission at 5% is $18,750 (before your firm takes out their portion). It is in the realtor's interest to convince the seller to sell to whoever comes in the door if you don't think you can get a higher offer in quickly because you're paying for advertising, you're wasting time at open houses, and the difference in your commission at a price of $375K and $400K is $18,750 to $20,000, or $1,250 (in reality, the difference is much, much smaller than that because the agent's company takes a huge chunk for themselves, so it's closer to a maybe $600, but for the sake of argument we'll stick with the first figure).

The difference of $25K selling price is HUGE to the owner/seller, but rather insignificant in the long term to the realtor - and in fact, that difference can be easily consumed in advertising costs, etc. if the realtor is unable to convince the homeowners/sellers to accept the earlier, lower offer rather than hold out for a higher one. So the issue is divergent goals between the seller and the agent - and it is a real problem.

"Its clear the Realtor(TM) code of ethics has achieved nothing." NOTE - not all real estate agents are Realtors, and only Realtors follow the code of ethics. I'm not advertising here, but ask your agent, and if you think it's important then choose accordingly.

Back to the relisting topic: Some agents will cancel and relist just so a property will show up as "new," but our local MLS now accumulates the days on market (DOM) so that's not fooling many anymore. But if a seller switches to a new agent, it is the right thing to do - new agent, new contract, new MLS# (but the DOM does not reset to zero unless 90 days have gone by since the old contract ended). Every buyer's agent can easily look this up, although I'm not sure that all do (I always check that out for my buyers).

I suspect, however, that other MLS systems across the country have looser rules than ours does, and that's why NAR is checking this out.

In any case, any buyer who's been looking for a while notices the same properties repeating. What I think is amazing, though, are the number of agents who copy and re-use photos from old listings.....aside from the dishonesty of stealing someone else's photos, all the re-used ones are blurry. Whenever I see that I know the listing agent is (1) lazy and (2) probably leans to the less-than-honest side.

I'm fully aware of the difference between Realtors(TM!) and Real Estate agents. In practice I find it utterly meaningless marketing speak.

Its true that a buyer doing reasonable due diligence on a neighborhood will not be fooled by the new listing trick. But that doesn't make the attempt to fool any less slimy.

And yes, I'd expect any good agent to know their neighborhoods well enough to catch the houses that have expired, waited, and relisted. But in truth, I find Agents with those qualities exist, but are rare.

Candidly I could care less how long a property has been on the market and I've always wondered what all the hubub was about in that regard. When I identify a property I see value in I purchase it, end of story. Longer listing times do usually play to my favor only because our buyers agent points them out and so we negotiate based on those dates, but if I didn't know I wouldn't care.