Writing Offers in the Leavenworth Real Estate Market

Mostly when we look at sales statistics in the real estate world, we are looking at a few numbers. Closed sales and pending sales are the most important.
But before a home goes “pending” it needs to be shown to prospective buyers and it needs to have written offers presented.
The numbers of showings that a certain property receives and the number of offers it gets aren’t public knowledge and aren’t really tracked in any centralized database. Mostly we have anecdotal evidence and skeptics like those at the Seattle Bubble blog are justified in being skeptical when real estate agents talk about increased activity at open houses and such.
Last fall (October of 2009) I collected some numbers from some transactions I was involved in. Take a look.
*****************************************************************************************************
October 2009
In the past two weeks, I have been involved in 6 offers, though only one has gone “pending” at this point. Looking at these offers and how they were received by the sellers might hold some valuable lessons for us all.
Offer #1 – Home in Leavenworth
Offer #2 – Building lot / acreage in Wenatchee
Offer# 3 – Building lot / acreage in Leavenworth
Offer #4 – House in Leavenworth
Offer #5 -House in Leavenworth
Offer #6 -House in Leavenworth
All told the properties total asking price was $2,793,000.
I wrote 3 of the offers on behalf of my buyers. 1 was accepted by the sellers, 1 was rejected by the seller, and 1 is still being considered. The offers were written at 63%, 80%, and 85% of listing price. The 63% off was countered at 84% , but the buyer was only willing to come up to 79%. The 80% offer was countered by the seller at 92% which was accepted by the buyer.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(Granted, these do not take into account the actual “market value” which may be quite different than the sellers perceived value and the listing price)
I received 3 offers on behalf of sellers I represent. These offers were for 65%, 72%, and 86%. The two lowest offers were rejected outright by the sellers without a counteroffer. The 65% offer did come up to 80% , but the seller was only willing to compromise at 88%. The 86% offer was countered at 97% which then was countered at 93% and then countered by the sellers at 96.7%. (However, this seller did just drop the listing price 17.5% the previous week.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What are the takeaways from this post? 

There are buyers in today’s real estate market making offers
Few Leavenworth sellers are desperate to sell at any price
Very low offers will upset some sellers
Sellers need to be prepared for low offers
Sellers need to be flexible on price if they want sell in today’s market
Buyers do not call all the shots in this market
In 2010 houses are selling for 94% of list, how does your offer compare?