Values, for the most part have held up fairly well, here in the Hamptons (and Manhattan) during this recent national real estate market meltdown. One of the problems is, that some homeowners have/had an unrealistic view as to the true “value” of their property to begin with.
Today, although as the attached article discusses, many sellers are holding firm on their prices, there are some terrific deals on the market.
My clients just closed on a property at $1.875M that was originally listed at $2.6M. The seller got motivated and decided to bring his price to market value. Sure, the buyer wanted to make a 10 – 15% discsounted offer, but I demonstrated to him that the house was prices properly and that, in this instance, offering at (or near) asking price was a smart move. He listened and is now happily in the home.
Today, an agent needs to know the status behind the offering prices. There may be 3 houses listed at $3M with one firm, another willing to sell for $2.8m and the third willing to let it go for $2.3M. Only getting behind the facade will tell you that. The days of “taking orders” for houses, showing five and having buyers pay full price for one is all but gone…it’s time to do your homework.
Check out this NYTIme article. It’s a little bit of the “Hamptons Hype”, but makes some interesting points:
…“This is a resort discretionary luxury market, so it doesn’t look and behave too much like the regular primary residential market,” she said. “Buyers don’t have to buy and sellers don’t have to sell. As a result of those two things you get a flat market, not necessarily a depressed market.”
Hamptons Real Estate Blog 