Required reading for sellers

This article from today’s Wall Street Journal (paid link) is direct, cogent and simple; simple in a good way. Finding an article in the big media about today’s changing market that provides good information that is not written from a fear-mongering frame of mind is rare. Not to mention that I have been telling my clients almost everything in this article for many months now. A few select quotes:

Sellers are also being told to cut prices aggressively if their house isn’t moving — or risk chasing the market downward.
…
Waterford Development Corp. will have homes in its Woodland Pond at Manchester development in New Hampshire reappraised two years after closing. If the price drops, the company says it will write the buyer a check for up to 15% of the original sales price, not including the value of any optional upgrades. (Wow! – JD)
…
… says he has begun checking multiple-listing service data every week or two instead of once a quarter to see how recent sales compare with deals that closed three and six months ago. “Things can change…very quickly,” he says.
…
Another approach is a personal plea. (She) encourages clients to court prospective buyers with a letter explaining the intangibles that make their home and neighborhood so appealing, such as the fact that the kids on the block trick-or-treat at Halloween together. During the height of the housing boom, some brokers were encouraging the same type of personal notes — but from buyers eager to get their bid accepted.
…

My, how things have changed. I will still write letters presenting my buyers to the sellers (and perhaps now from my sellers to the buyers) – the business remains about people, hot market or not.

While I read this article in print this evening, the Housing Bubble blog brings its spin to the conversation (archived: 2025).