Home sellers gambling with silly prices - new trend or not?
Everyone knows one, especially here in Greater Boston, where, in the eyes of their loving owners, all homes are above average.
It's the guy on the block who thinks his Colonial is worth $800,000 even as his neighbors are lucky to break the $500,000 mark.
OK, it's a little harsh, but I have taken to calling them delusional sellers. (I'm open to suggestions here.)
Of course, what makes this blog so fun is that everyone calls out everyone else on just about everything.
Jima contends I'm off the mark - all those sellers who start with a pie-in-the-sky price and then are forced to come down, one small price reduction after another, are doing what home sellers have always done. There's nothing new here, he contends.
Here's what I wrote and Jima's reply.
"My beef, if it can be called that, is not with stingy sellers as much as delusional sellers who come out shooting way too high with their listing price and then lower it by dribs and drabs."
"Scott - Why do you have a beef with that? That is the way it has worked for years."
Well Jima, with all due respect, where have you been the past few years?
We had that little thing called the real estate bubble, which burst and came close to thrusting the global economy into another Great Depression.
But while prices have since come down, the attitudes that took root during the bubble years about real estate and its wealth potential have been harder to shake.
So we still have home sellers - likely encouraged by the fact that prices remain high here in the Boston area - who approach the sale of their homes as if they were buying a lottery ticket or going to the casino.
They throw out a goofy price in hopes that someone will take the bait and give their children a free ride through college or ensure they can retire in style.
As in playing the lottery, there is always a winner or two, but there are lots of losers in this game as well.
Of course, the difference is that we are talking about a $750,000 bet as opposed to a $10 scratch ticket.
