CASE STUDY: Let’s take a look at how Sellers handled pricing and how Buyers negotiated on the 247 home sales in the first quarter
2023 in Flathead and Lake Counties. In the table above you’ll notice that the Sellers who were less bullish on their original pricing fared the best, negotiating only 3.2% off their pricing and sold in under 60 days. The longer the property stayed on the market, the more significant of a price concession the Seller made from their original pricing. For Sellers that sold in over 120 days, 84% of those Sellers opted to (or had to) reposition the property in the marketplace with
one or more price reductions before attracting a Buyer.
We believe that the Buyers are more discerning because of the higher interest rates they are committing to, and so Buyers are not willing to jump at houses that come
on the market as quickly as they did a year or more ago. We’ll still see short market times (under 60 days) and full price offers, but only if the Buyer perceives the property as a good value.
So, what can Sellers
learn from this? By reviewing real sales numbers in NW Montana, if a Seller’s goal is to negotiate the highest price, we can see that it’s not wise to overshoot the list price and “start high”. Because we have a shortage of listings there are buyers waiting in the wings in virtually every price range, so “testing” the market can be done, but be quick about it. If a property is listed and there aren’t offers fairly quickly (like within 1-2
weeks) the market statistics are indicating that it would behoove the Seller to adjust their pricing to take advantage of our good market and thereby create a sale within the first sixty days. The longer the property stays for sale, we are seeing the Seller nets significantly less.