11 Lindsay DriveI'm not picking on anyone here. This a lovely looking house in a convenient and desirable neighborhood, but it's been around at least since April '07, when its asking price was $12.950 million (and perhaps longer - there's a notation on the listing that shows the original listing price as $13.750 million but if that's accurate, someone's expunged the original listing from our records). Regardless of its pricing history, it's still for sale and still well above the $12 million mark; its latest price is $12.750 million. I'd love to see it go, as that might embolden buyers in lesser price ranges, but will it? Not today, probably.
Posts
7 comments:
My wife and I had looked at this house about 6 months ago and passed on it. We found very little real value in terms of the builder's attention to detail and finish for this price range. We also felt that the property offered very little privacy, 3 or 4 neighbors can look from their windows directly at your pool. Sometimes the issue is with aspects other than price. All houses are not created equal. That being said, we are still looking.
No location is ever perfect and no house will meet every buyer's criteria. That said, there's nothing like a good price to convince someone to overlook what they perceive as a defect. Would this work for you at, say, $1.5 million? Even if you say, quite properly, no, there's a buyer out there who would jump at it. So the trick is figuring out where, between $1.5 and $13.75 a buyer can be found. And if the builder/seller doesn't figure it out, the auctioneer will.
Chris, I know that we're in for quite a slide in prices here...but can you comment on which market segments might fare the worst and which will suffer least?
I would assume that the very, very top end and waterfront will suffer least because, as the saying goes, there is always a market for the best.
Your thoughts?
What little there is of top quality waterfront is probably safer than most because the folks with that kind of cash are probably still flush. But even that type of property can be priced off the market, as is shown by a listing in Old Greenwich. Beautiful setting and it would have sold a long time ago if it had been priced anywhere near its value. That didn't happen, so nothing did.
Here is my bet. These houses sit on the market, and no one moves up/trades down/etc. There are just not people willing to make 30% price cuts to get houses sold, so it will be months of "stalemate" as no buyer wants to pay a lot in such an environment, and no seller is willing to mark down his hearth & home, or can't afford to realize the hit.
CEA
Very interesting comments - esp. the very little privacy - 3 or 4 -neighbors can look from their windows directly at the pool. I will remember that - comment. Thank You!
My guess is that the spec builders will blink first. I know of a handful of them who are already willing to bail out (an unpopular term these days) at a loss if they can only stop the bleeding. For now, most of them aren't willing to accept a loss large enough to sell their projects but that will change if, as I suspect, banks end up with these things and dump them back on the market at fire sale prices. That will drive down the prices of the remaining prices and with them the value of older houses. At that point, those owners who have to get out will do so (thereby further depressing the market) and those who can hang on and wait will hang on and wait. But it's going to get messy.
Post a Comment