Comments on: Fewer Reductions As Home Starting Prices Come In Lower

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:05:42 +0000

Look at this very nice price cut from today:

1730 SONOMA AVE Berkeley, CA 94707

FOR SALE:
May 8th, 2008: $1,849,000
Price reduced May 28th 2008: $1,595,000

Kim

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:53:46 +0000

Thanks Tracey,

Try again. It should work fine now – I hope :-/

Kim
http://berkeleycrash.blogspot.com/

By: tracey.taylor

tracey.taylor — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:08:27 +0000

Kim: I’m still able problems loading your site. In fact it’s freezing my computer when I try it. You might want to investigate…

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:26:27 +0000

Tracey,

The site should work fine and are all up to date. It’s just a Google map now. One page at http://berkeleycrash.blogspot.com/

Kim

By: Philip Kaake

Philip Kaake — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:08:02 +0000

I find all of the above to be true. Listings are coming on the market and at lower prices and still going through price reductions, maybe fewer because they sell. Or maybe not depending on the mood of the seller. For those who track real estate through public sites you would have to manually check price reductions. As an agent I can look at the price history and see all the reductions and when they happened. If you are seriously looking for a home get a good local agent.

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:28:26 +0000

Hi Tracey,

Yes I’m still here and will take a look at my site.

Kim

By: tracey.taylor

tracey.taylor — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:09:50 +0000

Charles: I’m sure you are right that it is possible to track price reductions. It isn’t always easy to source the data, however, as the MLS listings don’t always include reductions. You would need to set up a spreadsheet and then devote considerable time to amalgamating all the data.

The Berkeley Housing Crash site keeps an eye on reductions but the site seems to have some technical hitch at the moment. I can’t load the homepage. Kim — are you there? Do you know what the problem is?

TheTruthHurts: I agree with you about the timing. The new year saw a rash of reductions in Berkeley — often multiple ones on a single house — then, as inventory picked up, it seemed as though real-estate agents and their clients increasingly figured out more sensible pricing strategies to avoid having to make cuts.

By: TheTruthHurts

TheTruthHurts — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:12:15 +0000

I agree with the empirical comment. I will say that as we approached fall (Sept-Oct) I saw more reductions through about March. The new spring crowd seems to be pricing lower (not by enough) and then not moving for awhile. There are also MANY more REOs out there creating a serious disconnect among properties. I’ve followed Fremont, Union City, hayward and not Berkeley.

By: Toady

Toady — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:21:39 +0000

2350 West St. has only been reduced $1,000, about 0.2%. Seems kind of pointless.

Is Maison Nouveau having a hard time moving listings, or what? I think the last thing they sold was 1628 Stuart last November, and that for went about 5% under. They seem to be pretty insistently overpricing their listings.

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:20:02 +0000

Isn’t this something that could be proved empirically, i.e. without appeal to one’s “sense” of the market?

For what its worth, I believe the opposite is true. I follow Berkeley, Kensington, and Piedmont and have typically noted about one or two reductions a day. (24 Highgate in Kensington this morning, btw).

Again, the data may prove me wrong, but I believe price reductions are more common than six or twelve months ago.