Ask Your Realtor About Days On Market Before Making An Offer

One thing that seems to elude buyers today when they are looking at homes and thinking of putting an offer in is how long has it been on the market. This can be a critical questions to ask your Realtor in order to assess the strenght of your offer and the motivation of the seller.

In the Charlotte, NC. listing service we have the option of seeing the history of a house. regardless if it was listed with different Realtors in the past. We can pull up and see when it first went on the market and what they started at for price. In addition I can tell you when they lowered their prices and by how much. So the question is why is this important?

If you are looking at a house that has been on the market for less than 30 days do you think that the seller is as motivated as one that may have their house on the market for 130 days or more? If it has been on the market for a short period of time you may not get the great deal you are hoping for on the house. There may be a lot of showings at that time and the seller could be thinking that with all these showings soemone is going to give me close to my asking price.

In comparison a home that has been on the market for 3 times that time without an offer would be more amicable to negotiate a deal with you becuase of the lack of offers on the house.

Another reason is what if the seller just reduced the house price down in the past few weeks. Is the seller more likely to have less room to negotiate now than before?

I recently had a buyer that wanted to make an offer on a house. When I looked up the house I realized the seller had just lowered his price $20,000 three weeks before. I had to prepare my buyer to understand that the seller may not have the negotiation room they want...the house was priced right for the neighborhood and was a fair market value. My buyer wanted a slightly less value for the house...But by them putting in a low offer and the seller countering with close to their asking price my buyer would have felt insulted he said had he not already known that the house was reduced $20,000 three weeks ago.

My buyer said he would have normally walked away and looked for another house. Knowing all the information allowed him to make a rational descsion based on the information and negotiate a price both he and the seller could agree on...Now the seller is happy they have their house sold and my buyer got the house he wanted at a fair price.

Knowing everything there is to know about the house and the timeline of the hosue on the market can make the difference between buying a house and not....