Lowball! takes a look at home sales over the past week from a very different perspective. For those new to Lowball!, a lowball offer is when a buyer offers a significantly lower bid than asking in hopes that the seller accepts the offer. We take a list of home sales over the past week and pick out the sales that have the highest percentage difference between asking price and selling price.
The purpose of Lowball! is to show buyers that the market has changed and buyers now have considerably more leverage than sellers. Just a short time ago, Lowball! offers would have been laughed at and discarded, however, not any more. The fact that so many under-asking offers are being accepted is clear proof that the market is changing.The list does not contain all sales, I hand-pick the most interesting sales from the list. These listings might be the highest dollar drops, biggest percentage reductions, or sales in towns that are thought to still be ‘hot’. Please note, even with double digit percentage reductions, these homes are still incredibly overpriced.
On to the list!
MLS# 2099475 – Oxford, NJ
Original List Price $219,000
List Price $199,000
Slaes Price $135,000 (32.2% Lowball!, 38.4% off Original List)
MLS# 2226956 – Mahwah, NJ
List Price $410,000
Sales Price $286,500 (30.1% Lowball!)
MLS# 2259114 – Newark, NJ
List Price $298,198
Sales Price $225,000 (24.5% Lowball!)
MLS# 2252876 – Orange, NJ
List Price $275,000
Sales Price $210,000 (23.6% Lowball!)
MLS# 2225488 – Vernon, NJ
List Price $185,900
Sales Price $150,000 (19.4% Lowball!)
MLS# 2112198 – Hanover, NJ
List Price $1,299,000
Sales Price $1,075,000 (17.2% Lowball!)
MLS# 2112198 – Millburn, NJ
List Price $1,300,000
Sales Price $1,100,000 (15.4% Lowball!)
MLS# 2230762 – Millburn, NJ
List Price $2,295,000
Sales Price $1,960,000 (14.6% Lowball!)
MLS# 2097806 – Mendham, NJ
Original List Price $2,499,000
List Price $2,399,000
Sales Price $2,074,000 (13.5% Lowball!, 17% off Original List)
MLS# 2248517 – Wayne, NJ
List Price $329,000
Sales Price $290,000 (11.9% Lowball!)
MLS# 2200311 – Washington Twp, NJ
Original List Price $689,000
List Price $650,000
Sales Price $580,000 (10.8% Lowball!, 15.8% off Original List)
MLS# 2248710 – West Milford, NJ
List Price $239,900
Sales Price $215,000 (10.4% Lowball!)
MLS# 2103828 – Haledon, NJ
Original List Price $519,000
List Price $499,000
Sales Price $447,500 (10.3% Lowball!, 13.8% off Original List)
MLS# 2222324 – Mountainside, NJ
Original List Price $698,000
List Price $679,000
Sales Price $610,000 (10.2% Lowball!, 12.6% off Original List)
MLS# 2225852 – Millburn, NJ
Original List Price $1,300,000
List Price $1,195,800
Sales Price $1,075,000 (10.1% Lowball)
Just an anecdote, seems like sales were a bit on the slow side this week.
Caveat Emptor!
Grim
Hey Folks,
The May 2006 Harper’s cover story is “The New Road to Selfdom, An illustrated guide to the coming real estate collapse.” The cover is an image of a man with a small but overwhelmingly heavy brick house on his back. I’m looking forward to having a chance to thumb through the story tomorrow. My wife, an English professor, said that the crowd at this blog–which she knows I read everyday–would like the story: lots of chats and graphs.
Anecdotal
That is, charts and graphs. anecdotal
HOUSING BUST
BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BOYCOTT HOUSES!!!!!!!!!!
BOOOOOOYAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BOOOOOYAAAAAAAAA!
Bob
“Road to Serfdom”
How true…..Many will do not even realize they have signed up for it.
MLS# 2099475 – Oxford, NJ
Grim,
That oxford house had me so intrigued, I had been looking in the area, and thought 10 room house only 219? I didnt go look at and am sorry I didnt,then to sell it for $135,000 wow
KL
Fair Price. I think homes would sell better if they realistically priced it in the beginning. I avoid seeing some houses because I think they are way beyond my budget.
Until this insanity subsides, I will be renting. Another year or two and I should be able to get something nice.
Okay, the piece–“the New Road to Selfdom”–is quite compelling, even after a half-bottle of Friday night wine, and more wonky at certain moments of econ-speak that my liberal arts, humanities-based training allows me to grasp in full.
Here, for inquirying minds, is the lead, the hustle, the hook.
“Never before have so man Americans gone so deeply into debt so willingly. Housing prices have swollen to the point that we’ve taking to calling a mortgage–by far the largest debt most of us will ever incur–an ‘investment.’ Sure, the thinking goes, $100,000 borrowed today will cost more than $200,000 to pay back over the next thirty years, but land, which they are not making any more of, will appreciate even faster. In the odd logic of the the real estate bubble, debt has come to equal wealth.
And not only wealth but freedom–an ever stranger paradox. After all, debt throughout most of history has been little more than a slight variation on slavery. Debtors were medieval peons or Indians bonded to Spanish plantations or the sharecropping children of slaves in the postbellum South. Few Americans today would volunteer for such an arrangement, and therefore would-be lords and barons have been forced to develop more sophisticated enticements.”
We are then lead through a 20 step guide to/overview of the current “crisis”–why the States today are in an analogous position to Japan in the 1990s re: real estate.
Harper’s ain’t mainstream media per se, but we are getting a hell of a lot closer to seeing our generally shared perspective there than we were when I started reading this blog back in January.
Viva Grim!
Anecdotal
2210250
20% and 158 days
Oh Bob, what do you have to say about Harper’s?
All I could say is….. BOOYAAAAA!!! Man, that is contagious!
Oh, and once again, for those that think I’m a jealous renter, I’m a homeowner for 6 years now. To all the greedy pigs, up yours.
Viva Grim!!
Lowballs for me is 40+% off. we need something strong shots to make the greedy pee in their pants. I wish the flippers lose their house and their pants
MLS# 2099475 – Oxford, NJ
“Eclectic charm abides in this truly indescribable gem.” LOL
I just love RealtorSpeak!
Grim this MLS you have listed points to Hanover township (zip: 07981).
MLS# 2112198 – Millburn, NJ
List Price $1,300,000
Sales Price $1,100,000 (15.4% Lowball!)
I think you may have accidentally pasted a dupe MLS number from the Hanover entry above it.
Likely just a cut/paste error. Let me see if I can straighten that out.
grim
Grim,
I like the way you look at the weeks sales and pick out the lowball sales. I need your opinion on the over aksings that still come in weekly – just doing a 2 county search for seven days I came up with a few – here are 2 please check them and give me your thoughts. MLS # 2235381 – 2234322
I used to think I analyzed things too much after the birth of the interne and now I am getting worse -since I found your blog (-:
KL
Grim, I seem to remember that you were looking in Mendham. What do you think of the green cape that just went on the market?
We looked at a historic project house (16 West Main) a block or two down from the Black Horse Inn. Was way too far gone for even me to contemplate. It would be easier to just tear it down, reclaim as much timber and detail work as possible, and just rebuild an idential house. Current asking is $485, down from $575. I contemplated offering $350 for it, but my wife won’t buy into the project.
Green house on Adams looks like a flip to me. Does that agent expect anyone to believe someone actually furnishes their home with lawn furniture? Are the green patio chairs the same ones pictured outside?
grim
grim
Thanks for the input. We saw it up last year, but it went off the market at $429,000. The deal went sour, however, when they discovered the underground oil tank was leaking. Yikes.
“The deal went sour, however, when they discovered the underground oil tank was leaking. Yikes.”
I hear leaking oil tanks are a real nightmare, costing tens of thousands to clean up?
The EPA has to be brought in as well, to perform soil samples over the course of several months while the lawn remains dug up? (Or is that just when near a stream?)
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