Realtor Realties in a Slowing Market

By John B. Turiano

The latest Westchester County Board of Realtors sales report shows a much lower inventory, a drop in the total number of sales as well as a drop in median sales prices ($640,000 to $622,500).
In such a slowing market, what are the specific challenges a realtor faces selling single-family homes? I asked Mark J. Seiden of The Mark Seiden Real Estate Team in Briarcliff Manor (Homeman.net) for some answers.

Q: Do you have a different approach to selling a home when the market is down?
A: This year I included a “professional home stager” to go in and offer suggestions to each and every one of my listings. In addition, we are about to start having each listing professionally inspected by a licensed inspector prior to the property going on the market. This will ensure that the property is in tip-top shape for the buyers.
Strategies that have worked well besides staging are “for-sale” signs that provide a phone number to get an immediate text message and/or information faxed back to the consumer. Advertising properties in the newspapers has not worked, so we don’t bother anymore.

Q: Are homeowners more difficult to work with in a down market?
A: They need more handholding and come into the process with the incorrect notion that a buyer will bid extremely low on every house no matter what the asking price is. If the house is truly priced correctly, there are still bidding wars. Currently, we are engaged in five bidding wars on my properties.

Q: What is the best strategy for a home that’s been sitting? Is there ever a benefit to taking a property off the market and putting it back on at a later date?
A: If a property is overpriced and the homeowner is in denial, I will have a meeting with them to re-evaluate the situation. If they are still not realistic, I will sometimes let the listing go. If a client is realistic and it has been sitting, I will remove the listing from the MLS and put it back on the market as a new listing to create a more updated MLS number. This is usually done when there is either a new price or the homeowners have done something to change the appearance of their home or both. This can help create new market awareness. Removing a house from the market and then putting it back on later is one of the worst things you can do. The house will not sell any faster.