Hi,

I moved to a small town in central NY, population around 30,000. I've
been looking at the housing market and am very confused. The
houses in this area are 20-30 percent higher than surrounding areas. I
guess people really like this town. But here's the weird thing:
houses start out at say $170,000 and then finally sell 3 - 6 MONTHS
later for around $130,000. Some take over a year! I can't believe
these people have that kind of patience (and greed?). I'm not talking
about two or three unusual cases--it's truly the NORM here.

For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.

A friend of mine is shopping for a similar house in a suburb of a much
larger city about 50 miles away. These houses are better priced.
He says it takes about 2 weeks for the houses to sell. Here, it's
extremely unusual to see a house sell that fast. Why such a
discrepency??

Could someone please explain this? I just don't get it.


Thanks much for your input!



Jim

p.s. I googled & this is the best newsgroup I could find for this
posting. If it's not the right one, please let me know

You explained it yourself... people are overpricing the market.


Dimitri

Well in different parts of the country, you are going to have certain
concentrations of people with a certain level of education, type of career,
moral and religious values, etc.

Say for example there was a large concentration of "used car salesmen" in a
certain area. I would expect a lot of price haggling.

Or say in another area there was a high concentration of a particular
religious group which did not watch TV, had an absence of greed, tended to
be naive, etc. I would not expect so much price haggling.

May want to look at the demographics of the people who live in this area.


"Jim" wrote in message
Hi,

I moved to a small town in central NY, population around 30,000. I've
been looking at the housing market and am very confused. The
houses in this area are 20-30 percent higher than surrounding areas. I
guess people really like this town. But here's the weird thing:
houses start out at say $170,000 and then finally sell 3 - 6 MONTHS
later for around $130,000. Some take over a year! I can't believe
these people have that kind of patience (and greed?). I'm not talking
about two or three unusual cases--it's truly the NORM here.

For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.

A friend of mine is shopping for a similar house in a suburb of a much
larger city about 50 miles away. These houses are better priced.
He says it takes about 2 weeks for the houses to sell. Here, it's
extremely unusual to see a house sell that fast. Why such a
discrepency??

Could someone please explain this? I just don't get it.


Thanks much for your input!



Jim

p.s. I googled & this is the best newsgroup I could find for this
posting. If it's not the right one, please let me know

In article . com, Jim says...

Hi,

I moved to a small town in central NY, population around 30,000. I've
been looking at the housing market and am very confused. The
houses in this area are 20-30 percent higher than surrounding areas. I
guess people really like this town. But here's the weird thing:
houses start out at say $170,000 and then finally sell 3 - 6 MONTHS
later for around $130,000. Some take over a year! I can't believe
these people have that kind of patience (and greed?). I'm not talking
about two or three unusual cases--it's truly the NORM here.

For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.

A friend of mine is shopping for a similar house in a suburb of a much
larger city about 50 miles away. These houses are better priced.
He says it takes about 2 weeks for the houses to sell. Here, it's
extremely unusual to see a house sell that fast. Why such a
discrepency??

Could someone please explain this? I just don't get it.


Thanks much for your input!


Where are you? Where are you used to?

I grew up in Texas, my father was a real estate agent near Houston for awhile.
I bought a house in upstate NY near Poughkeepsie.

The markets couldn't be any more different. The turnover up here in upstate New
York is completely different - folks buy more for a lifetime. They aren't so
much snatched up for investment value as in other markets. There's less of the
starter-home/moving up pattern than there is in the Texas market he's used to.
Folks don't so much decorate in neutrals, etc., thinking of resale.

They're buying from close-by more - waiting for the right house. Even here
where there is a fair number of corporate folks, there is less pressure to buy
than in some other markets. I think that may be a big difference in a rural
town vs. a city suburb.

There are other differences, like homes being built almsot next to a very busy
road are very common, even new construcion - in places like the Houston or
Denver suburban market, where our family lived for awhile, such houses would
never sell except for commercical purposes.

The pricing difference, I can't guess about. But it depends on the particulars.

Banty

Jim wrote:
Hi,

For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.

A friend of mine is shopping for a similar house in a suburb of a much
larger city about 50 miles away. These houses are better priced.
He says it takes about 2 weeks for the houses to sell. Here, it's
extremely unusual to see a house sell that fast. Why such a
discrepency??


We bought a house in June that had been on the market since February.
Not at all unusual around here. (Dallas suburbs) When you have more
people trying to sell than to buy, houses won't move fast. I'm not sure
what's so unusual about that. We had PLENTY of houses to choose from in
our price range, and lots of them had been on the market for 3-6 months
or longer. I'm not complaining, 'motivated sellers' are a good thing
when house shopping! LOL!

"Jim" wrote in message
ups.com...
For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.
Could someone please explain this? I just don't get it.

I moved from a sizzling real estate market in Colorado to a small town in
Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. My house in Colorado sold before I got the
sign up in the yard, and they paid nearly double the price I paid a few
years prior.

The housing market in my new small town is very different. The prices are a
bit inflated, but not wildly so. There are a large number of
financially-comfortable retirees from a nearby large Fortune 500 company.
Many of them have moved into a popular local retirement community and put
their houses up for sale. They set a price and never change it, and they
don't care if it takes years to sell. The only time that any urgency is
applied to the sale is if the person passes away. The same is true for
those retirees who move to Florida or Arizona and leave houses here for
sale. They just don't have any motivation to negotiate, so the price stays
high and the sale takes many months.

That has a definite effect on the market, but there are many exceptions. I
found a house being sold by a man who just wanted to move as quickly as
possible. After negotiating a good deal, the appraisal came in at 20%
higher than I paid for it (instant equity). So, even in weird markets, it
is possible to get a good deal.

+

Thanks everyone for the replies! I guess it's simply a market where
the homes are over-priced & everyone refuses to admit it. I find it
really annoying though. If I see a house for sale today, I know they
won't accept a reasonable offer 'til January-April! I don't think I
have that kind of patience.

Thanks again,


Jim

On 24 Sep 2005 17:02:14 -0700, Jim wrote:
Hi,

I moved to a small town in central NY, population around 30,000. I've
been looking at the housing market and am very confused. The
houses in this area are 20-30 percent higher than surrounding areas. I
guess people really like this town. But here's the weird thing:
houses start out at say $170,000 and then finally sell 3 - 6 MONTHS
later for around $130,000. Some take over a year! I can't believe
these people have that kind of patience (and greed?). I'm not talking
about two or three unusual cases--it's truly the NORM here.

For the first few I saw, I just thought the houses were simply
overpriced, so it took a while to sell. But ALL of them? You think
there
would only be a few.

A friend of mine is shopping for a similar house in a suburb of a much
larger city about 50 miles away. These houses are better priced.
He says it takes about 2 weeks for the houses to sell. Here, it's
extremely unusual to see a house sell that fast. Why such a
discrepency??

Could someone please explain this? I just don't get it.


I live in Rochester, and have seen quite a bit of this
in my neighborhood over the past year. We're a street of
nominally $120-$130K ranches and colonials, but people
have been putting them on the market for $160K+. Then
the houses sit for 6 months, and eventually get sold for
$130K.

Well, with the exception of 2 houses that sold for $170K,
but I would have to imagine they weren't financed, as no
reputable lender would have written a note for a house
so wildly out of line with their actual values....

The houses that are priced between $120K and $130K never
spend more than a few weeks on the market, at most.

My only guess is that some people see how hot the housing
market is in other areas, and think it applies everywhere. ;-)

- Rich

Jim wrote:
Thanks everyone for the replies! I guess it's simply a market where
the homes are over-priced & everyone refuses to admit it. I find it
really annoying though. If I see a house for sale today, I know they
won't accept a reasonable offer 'til January-April! I don't think I
have that kind of patience.

Thanks again,


Jim

I don't know that the houses are necessarily overpriced. They're on the
market for months, not years. It just may be an area with more people
selling than buying. It happens. My father lives in the CA Bay area,
and when he bought his house in the 80s, he noticed that most of his
neighbors were elderly. Sure enough, 20 years later half the block
seemed to move to retirement homes, in with family, or die. It was like
half the neighborhood was for sale for a couple years there. Even in
the Bay Area, one of the hottest housing markets around, they didn't
all move that fast. The local market was flooded with identical 50 year
old floorplans. Some of the houses took 6 months to sell.