I received an interesting comment from one of our house buyers this weekend. This buyer has been steadily trying to buy a home since November 2008. They tried to remain un-emotional (not fall in love with only one house) on each property and focused on “getting a good deal“. They tried to offer less than the listed price and get some of their closing costs paid on each offer. They made five offers over five months. They did get one offer accepted and then later that offer failed when a repair item couldn’t get negotiated successfully.
Finally, after five months, they decided to make an offer that would get accepted, just so they get their life settled. The comment the buyer made was “What we found, is that this isn’t a buyers market!”.
What is amazing to me, is that from meeting with sellers often, I keep hearing things like “I’m not going to give my house away“, or “I want to sell, but I don’t have to sell.” These statements indicate that the sellers believe the market is low and that if I’m correct in my pricing, the market is too low.
This is contrary to the buyers comment that we aren’t in a “buyers market”. Interesting. It’s the old debate about whether the market is half full or half empty! Isn’t perspective an interesting thing?