Tag: Seller's Market

Want to Avoid Bidding Wars?

   Sellers love bidding wars. Buyers not so much. If you’re a buyer and want to avoid a bidding war, simply ask one of our agents (below) to set up an MLS alert including this criterion: Days in MLS >9. As I write this, there are 1,021 listings that have been active on REcolorado 1 to 9 days on MLS, but 4,044 that have been active over 9 days. A listing that has been on the MLS 10 days or longer is far less likely to have multiple offers (unless it just posted a big price drop).

Jim Smith, 303-525-1851

Jim Swanson, 303-929-2727

Chuck Brown, 303-885-7855

David Dlugasch, 303-908-4835

Ty Scrable, 720-281-6783

Andrea Cox, 720-446-8674

Fewer Sellers Are Trying “For Sale By Owner” — Here Are Some Reasons Why

There will always be people who are comfortable with selling their home without the assistance of a real estate professional. In 2019, 8% of sellers chose the For Sale By Owner approach. That’s an increased from 2018’s record low of 7%.

Here are some of the things with which you need to be comfortable if you choose the FSBO approach to selling your home.

Commissions: You will save on commissions, but not as much as you probably think. Listing commissions are negotiable, and the average commission is below the 6% you may think it is, and the listing commission includes the “co-op” commission paid to the buyer’s agent. In our market, that co-op commission is typically 2.8%.

Since most buyers choose to be represented by a buyer’s broker, you can expect that you won’t be able to save more than about 3% on commissions. Then you need to calculate whether selling without professional representation of your own is worth that reduced savings.

Net proceeds: It’s possible that you won’t get as high a price for your home without the marketing advantage of being listed on the MLS, which could attract multiple offers and even a bidding war.

Putting aside that bottom-line calculation, here are some other elements to be considered by the unrepresented seller.

Showings: How will you handle showings, including screening those who will be walking through your home? This is handled nicely by ShowingTime, the service utilized by virtually all agents in the Denver market. They make sure that only licensed agents are approved for showings. All licensed agents have been fingerprinted and passed a background check. In two decades of listing homes, I’ve never had an incident of theft or other crime associated with an agent showing of my listings.

Your time: Another consideration is the convenience of showings. Yes, you could purchase a lockbox and allow agent showings when you aren’t home, but you don’t want to give the lockbox code to buyers who don’t have an agent. Someone has to let them in.

Feedback: Another service provided by the showing service (only available to agents) is obtaining feedback after each showing and forwarding it to both seller and agent.

Disclosures: There are strict rules regarding disclosures of “adverse material conditions,” which real estate agents know well. If your home was built before 1978, there’s a 5-figure fine associated with failure to disclose possible lead-based paint hazards in your house, even if the disclosure would say there are no such hazards.

Pricing: Even in a seller’s market, an overpriced home can sit on the market for a long time and end up selling for less than if it were priced correctly in the beginning. Priced correctly, your home may attract competing offers, and an experienced agent (like us at Golden Real Estate) knows how to play those buyers against each other to get you the highest possible price.

“But it’s a seller’s market”: Yes, it’s easier in our long-running seller’s market to sell a single-family home (condos are stalling because of Covid-19), but that makes it all the more important to get your home in front of the full market to stimulate competition, which only a listing agent with access to the MLS can do for you. It’s no surprise that the number of FSBOs has fallen, not risen, because of this dynamic. Your net proceeds, even with a higher commission expense, could be much higher.

Despite Global Pandemic, Our Real Estate Market Was the Hottest Ever for August

Much to the consternation of observers, the real estate market in metro Denver was hotter this August than it was in any previous August, according to the Market Trends Committee of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors (DMAR). At this rate, 2020’s statistics at year end will likely exceed 2019’s statistics.

The report covers an expanded metro area, including 11 counties instead of the 7 urban and suburban counties that you and I think of as “metro Denver.” The non-urban counties included in the report are Clear Creek, Gilpin, Elbert and Park.

Detached single-family homes sold like crazy in August—up over 6% from August 2019, despite 50% fewer active listings at month’s end. The average sold price was up 13.8% from last year, and average days on market was down 23%.

Attached homes sold on a par with last year, although their inventory was also down — 19% fewer listings at month’s end. They did sell quicker, though, with days on market down by over 27%.

Unlike DMAR, I like to define the metro Denver market as within a 25-mile radius of the state capitol, as shown here, instead of by county. Using that method, the number of detached homes sold this August was up 13.7% from August 2019, and the sold price per finished square foot (my preferred metric) was up 7.0%. Average days on market dropped by 31%, but median days on market plunged 57% from 14 days in August 2019 to 6 days this year.

Even more interesting to me is that median days on market was in double digits until March 2020 — the first month of Covid-19 lockdown — when it dropped by 40% to 6 days, and remained in the 5- to 7-day range through August. It could be said that “Stay at Home” and “Safer at Home” really meant “Buy a Home” in the real estate business!

Average sold price within that  25-mile radius rose by 13.4% to $597,290, while median sold price rose by 11.6% to $505,000. The gap between average and median is attributable to a large number of million and multi-million dollar closings. I wish others would stop focusing on average stats for that reason.

The number of active listings (what we call “inventory”) plummeted from 6,483 in August 2019 to 3,444 in August 2020, a 47% decline.

Another measure of market strength is how many listings expire without selling. That number was 777 in August 2019, but it fell by 37% to 493 this year.

The average ratio of sold price to listing price was 100% both last August and this August — suggesting that roughly half the listings sold above full price. With half the homes selling in 6 days or less, it’s to be expected that there were multiple offers and possibly a bidding war on many listings.

This week my downtown Golden fixer-upper closed at $665,000, which was $40,000 over listing price. My Lakewood listing from last week is already under contract at $55,000 over full price. Clearly, the seller’s market is still hot despite the pandemic.

If you have considered selling your home, there couldn’t be a better time than now to put your home on the market. And you couldn’t do better than call one of us listed below to talk about it. Your home would, of course, be featured in my weekly Denver Post column and on this blog.

If you let us represent you in the purchase of your replacement home, the listing commission could be as low as 3.6% and qualify you for totally free moving!

Jim Smith— 303-525-1851

Jim Swanson — 303-929-2727

Carrie Lovingier — 303-907-1278

Chuck Brown — 303-885-7855

David Dlugasch — 303-908-4835

Carol Milan — 720-982-4941