Discounts on Leavenworth Homes

As a Leavenworth real estate agent one of the most common questions I hear is “How much should we offer on this house?”
The answer always depends on the motivation of the seller, time on market, and a dozen other factors.
While we do expect to see some low offers in a buyer’s market due to the oversupply of homes , buyers often ask “is there such a thing as too low an offer?”
I think so.
Recently, someone asked me if an offer of 50% of the list price was worth offering on a lot I have listed for sale. I asked the seller and he agreed. No thank you.
I had a hunch that offers for less than 20% below the listed price aren’t likely to go very far.
I checked the sales so far in 2009 and this is what I found:

% of recent list price for sold Leavenworth homes

What do we see:

Half all homes sold for a discount of 5% or less.
No homes sold for more than a 20% discount.

What does this mean?
These aren’t the discounts off the original list price. The small discounts mean that buyers need to follow the seller’s lead. Sellers who are ready to sell will lower their price to meet the market.  When a seller has a listing price that is 30-50% more than what you are willing to pay, it means they aren’t likely to accept your offer.
Sellers – if you aren’t seeing offers it means your home is listed too high. Americans aren’t used to doing a lot of haggling. “They can always offer lower” is a good sound byte, but it’s not likely to sell your home.
In an upcoming article I’ll take a look a condo prices in Leavenworth and Kahler Glen to see if they match this pattern.
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Required Disclaimer
NOTE: This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by the North Central Washington Association of Realtors or its Multiple Listing Service. Neither the Association nor its MLS guarantees or are in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by the Association or its MLS may not reflect all real estate activity in the Market.