What’s holding the local real estate market back?

One component that I have encountered several times recently – Sellers who are setting their prices based on what they owe. What is a buyer (and Realtor) to do when the Seller won’t negotiate below that price, and would rather go to foreclosure than sell?

If the market value is $200,000 and the Seller owes $250,000 – where do we go?

Update: here’s a related story (no longer available) –

Now, however, some mortgage borrowers who stretched financially to buy a home with temporarily-low “teaser” payments and no money down – and haven’t owned it long enough to gain any equity – are taking the position that it’s hopeless to try to save the house. They’ll await foreclosure and use their money to try to keep up with other monthly bills instead.

“We see people coming in who say, ‘We’ll just let the home go. We don’t have anything in it anyway,’ ” said King, who has been a consumer counselor for 15 years.

That change in attitude helps explain why there is a subprime mortgage crisis and why banks – who analysts say made credit too easy for too many – have had to set aside billions of dollars in reserves to cover potentially bad loans.