sellers face more days on market

Sellers are facing more days on market with prices still high in the Inland Empire. 2-3 months without an offer (or an acceptable offer) are becoming common. Homes in nice condition, with curb appeal, and priced well can go in about 90 days, but listings that are lacking in these areas are taking longer and even expiring.

I still talk to people who believe that their homes should be able to fetch tens of thousands over the highest closed sale in their neighborhood. The problem is that many times, such homeowners have gone to open houses around them when their neighbors first went on the market. They don't know what the properties really sold for and when, and they might not even know that the sellers lowered the price, or the house fell out of escrow, failed to appraise, expired, and so on and so forth.

I'm currently advising sellers to list for 4 to 6 months and to be flexible. If traffic dies down, if agents aren't previewing and bringing buyers to look at the house anymore (or perhaps very few came even at first), the sellers should seriously consider lowering the price and/or increasing the commission. To help them come to a decision, they need to look realistically at the list prices of the properties that are going into escrow as well as the actual sales prices of the recently closed comparables around them because these numbers will show them what buyers are willing to pay right now.