A report from the Santa Cruz Sentinel in California. “September’s median price in the county dropped to $815,000, according to Gary Gangnes of Real Options Realty, who tracks the numbers. A year ago, the median home price was $920,000, according to Gangnes’ figures. One single-family home in the county that sold close to the median price was 140 Boulder Brook Drive in Boulder Creek. With three bedrooms, two bathrooms and 1,461 square feet, the home was listed June 12 for $840,000, according to Bailey Properties real estate agent Jo-Ellen Smith, the seller’s agent for the home. After the price was dropped twice, the house closed escrow Sept. 28 for $795,000.”
“Smith said real estate agents should price their houses ‘at or under market,’ or at the prices consumers are buying. ‘There’s more of a power balance between a buyer and seller,’ Smith said, ‘It’s an equal field depending on which location.’ Sellers have to manage their aspirations, or expectations for a price, because they have been in charge for so long, Smith said.”
The New York Times. “By most measures, it would be absurd to call $1,515,000 for four walls of Sheetrock a bargain. And yet. In Manhattan’s flagging real estate market, that was the median sale price of a two-bedroom apartment last quarter — an 8 percent drop from the same period last year, and the largest discount among studio to three-bedroom co-ops and condos, according to the brokerage Douglas Elliman. Only the four-bedroom-and-up market fell further, with a 17 percent drop.”
“After years of softness at the top, it is finally becoming a buyers’ market for people who intend to actually live and work in New York. Case in point: deep bargains across the wide spectrum of two-bedrooms, the most common apartment for sale in the city. Many look to the glut of new high-rise, luxury condos for what ails the city’s real estate market, but ambitious pricing at the top also set unrealistic expectations in the comparatively modest co-op market.”
“‘Sooner or later what was happening in the luxury market was likely to catch up with the two-bed market,’ said Frederick Warburg Peters, the chief executive of Warburg Realty, who added that one-beds and small two-bedrooms have ‘sunk into the doldrums’ since about four months ago.”
“Frances Katzen, an agent with Douglas Elliman, recently listed in Sutton Place, on the east side of Manhattan, a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with plenty of natural light and prewar bona fides for $599,000 — a 20 percent markdown from its previous price of $750,000. Two years ago, it listed and languished on the market with another brokerage for $995,000.”
“‘People are cannibalizing each other, to usurp a buyer from one another,’ said Ms. Katzen, who believes the true value of the apartment is around $625,000 — but she listed lower in the hopes of standing out from a growing number of co-ops for sale.”
“‘I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a client say ‘O.K., if I drop the price, can you guarantee me a quick sale?’ And my response is no,’ said. ‘All I can guarantee you is no sale, if you don’t,’ said Mr. Peters of Warburg Realty.”
From 24 East in New York. “The number of home sales has declined for the seventh straight quarter while the median sales price has stagnated, according to the Elliman Report for the Hamptons market. It was also the lowest number of third quarter sales in eight years. The optimism for the future that many industry insiders expressed after a lackluster second quarter largely proved to be premature. While a turnaround was anticipated in the third quarter, sales statistics did not bear that out. Rather, July, August and September delivered more of the same.”
“The inventory of single-family homes and condominiums on the market in the Hamptons was 2,571 at the end of the third quarter of 2019, up 76.9 percent from a year prior, according to the Elliman Report. The months of supply — the number of months it would take to sell everything currently on the market, based on the current pace of sales — rose to 19.2, up 108.7 percent.”
“Ernest Cervi, Corcoran’s regional senior vice president for the East End, attributed the third quarter numbers to some of the same factors that suppressed sales during the second quarter. Mr. Cervi had a familiar message on pricing: ‘If you had the listing on the market for three months and it hasn’t sold, you need to get your seller to reduce their price. And that’s going to attract buyers that have been sitting on the sidelines. It’s really going to be about value — the market is about value.’”
“He personally would suggest reducing the price within just 30 days if there are no offers. ‘If you have showings and no offers, it usually tells you that it’s overpriced,’ he said.”