A Rocky Point home Gisela Skoglund and her family are trying to sell has been on the market for nearly two years. The property is large enough to build another house on, and the Skoglunds are asking $319,000.

“We’ve had a lot of people looking at it,” Skoglund said. “But I think it’s actually fear” that keeps people from buying. “People are afraid to make a commitment. When you listen to the media, it’s creating fear. Young people are afraid they’ll lose their jobs.”

Lady, if your house has been on the market for two years, it’s not because people are afraid of losing their jobs.  It’s because the house isn’t priced right.

It’s amazing to me that even now, with the wind howling and the lightning crashing and poison arrows falling from the sky, people are still sitting on their over-inflated prices because that’s what they think the house is worth or that’s what they think they deserve or that’s what they need to get out of their house to make it work for them.

Case in point, my co-worker is retiring and moving out of state. She’s already bought her retirement home and is counting the days before she can bug out of NY state. All that remains is selling her condo.  I advised her that in this market you need to be agressive with your price reductions to move a property quickly. She snipped that she wasn’t going to lower her price. The place was listed just over the number she needed to make the retirement work for her. And, in fact, she turned down an offer that was 15% off her ask.

As a buyer, I don’t really care what the seller “needs” to make the deal work for him or her. I don’t care about the mortgage on the house or the home equity loan you need to pay off or how much money you need to get to settle your divorce.  I only care if the price works for me. If it doesn’t, then I walk.

Homes in Babylon

The new year is upon us and sometimes it feels like the Red Queen’s race in the real estate market. The faster we go, the further behind we get.

Pickings are slim, as you might expect. Not a lot of sales since the last MLS report. 72 homes may be a record low, since I started looking at these numbers, but that’s probably due to more people pulling their homes off the market in hopes of better times in the spring. That’s a pretty futile hope, from where I stand.

I drove by 401 Park and I noticed that the Realtor sign was gone and a FSBO sign had been erected in its place. That’s a sign(heh) of desperation. Even if they plan to rebate to the buyer the entire 6% they were planning to pay a Realtor, I don’t see how that gets it done in this market.

Our usual suspects are still on MLS, waiting for some buyer with more money than sense to swing by and take the property off their hands. Our old friend, 43 Strong is still there, of course. The ask on that one is down 100K from their initial ask. At $399,000, it’s still way overpriced. Back in 2007, when I first saw the place, I thought it might be worth $375K, now I think they’d be hard pressed to get $325K for it.

As for me, the hunt begins in earnest in 2009. Debra wants us in a house before the baby is very mobile, so we won’t be waiting for the absolute bottom. Get ready for the lowballs, people.

Tom McGiveron has a new post up on foreclosure statistics in Nassau and Suffolk from RealtyTrac. RealtyTrac doesn’t have the best reputation for accuracy, but even still there’s bad new all around Suffolk county.

The big shock, 34 homes in foreclosure right here in Babylon. That may not seem like a lot. Looking at the numbers, there are 176 homes in foreclosure in Tom’s backyard of Deer Park.

But Babylon isn’t Deer Park. Not only is it smaller, it’s a much more upscale and exclusive community. There are no real bad or undesirable parts of Babylon. I’d guess that there’s not a lot of sub-prime lending here. The next time a Realtor tells you that Babylon is “holding it’s value”, tell them about the 34 foreclosures.

As for me, I’m waiting for the REOs that should be showing up in the spring. Until then, I’ll be hiding under my desk.

Photo by Flickr user Respres used under a Creative Commons license

Homes in Babylon

There’s not a lot new in the mix, certainly nothing to interest us. A lot high-priced, million-dollar range and up homes seem to have hit the market recently. I can’t help but wonder if it’s related to the Wall Street meltdown and issues with the credit markets.

As time goes on I feel that there’s less and less of a chance of us buying something this year unless there’s a really good deal on a house we love and I haven’t seen anything close to that yet.