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.
We’ve got a great list this week..
MLS# 2238846 – Franklin, NJ
List Price $199,900
Sales Price $128,000 (36% Lowball!)
MLS# 2248366 – Elizabeth, NJ
List Price $344,900
Sales Price $250,000 (27.5% Lowball!)
MLS# 2102754 – Jefferson, NJ
Original List Price $485,000
List Price $435,000
Sales Price $340,000 (21.8% Lowball!, 29.9% off Original List)
MLS# 2232898 – Lebanon, NJ
List Price $205,000
Sales price $165,000 (19.5% Lowball!)
MLS# 2241728 – Long Hill, NJ
List Price $1,199,000
Sales Price $999,900 (16.6% Lowball!)
MLS# 2107647 – Morris Plains, NJ
Original List Price $609,000
List Price $459,000
Sales Price $385,000 (16.1% Lowball!, 36.8% off Original List)
MLS# 2110245 – Scotch Plains, NJ
Original List Price $1,300,000
List Price $1,275,000
Sales Price $1,072,000 (15.9% Lowball!, 17.5% off Original List)
MLS# 2110530 – West Orange, NJ
Original List Price $399,000
List Price $349,000
Sales Price $300,000 (14% Lowball!, 24.8% off Original List)
MLS# 2216265 – Nutley, NJ
Original List Price $379,000
List Price $455,900
Sales Price $393,000 (13.8% Lowball!, 18% off Original List)
MLS# 2209672 – Teaneck, NJ
List Price $450,000
Sales Price $390,000 (13.3% Lowball!)
MLS# 2239213 – Tewksbury, NJ
List Price $420,000
Sales Price $365,000 (13.1% Lowball!)
MLS# 2213175 – Harding, NJ
List Price $1,275,000
Sales Price $1,125,000 (11.8% Lowball!)
MLS# 2208391 – Butler, NJ
Original List Price $359,900
List Price $339,900
Sales Price $300,000 (11.7% Lowball!, 16.6% off Original List)
MLS# 2226450 – Warren, NJ
Original List Price $689,000
List Price $625,000
Sales Price $555,000 (11.2% Lowball!, 19.4% off Original List)
MLS# 21110376 – Berkeley Heights, NJ
Original List Price $1,359,000
List Price $1,197,000
Sales Price $1,065,000 (11% Lowball!, 21.6% off Original List)
MLS# 2075136 – Chester, NJ
Original List Price $1,100,000
List Price $899,000
Sales Price $800,000 (11% Lowball!, 27.3% off Original List)
MLS# 2222887 – West Paterson, NJ
Original List Price $385,000
List Price $369,900
Sales Price $330,000 (10.8% Lowball!, 14.3% off Original List)
Caveat Emptor!
Grim
Grim, thanks so much for this -Once you do a few more lowballs, have you thought of archiving them or charting them so we can see what seems to me to be an ever higher percentage of price drop? (looking forward to 1st 40-50 percent lowball…once that happens, I suggest we all enjoy a highball)
Grim:
Question re: your statement “Please note, even with double digit percentage reductions, these homes are still incredibly overpriced.”
Do you make a qualitative decision that the homes you feature in Lowball! are still overpiced when you select them for inclusion? Have you come across any homes in your research that are fairly priced? Or would you say, as a blanket statement, that any and all homes on the market today are, beyond a doubt, overpriced?
Grim,
your lowball list seems to be getting longer? Are you as shocked as I am to see things unfolding so quickly?
The realtors must be on to you as I am seeing so many properties “under priced” according to comps.
They want their bidding wars, so now they intentially price too low and then brag about having multiple offers.
Sellers are now accepting offers with 24 hour expirations. Realtor said that on many homes they are no longer waiting for all offers through a weekend because in this market it may or may not happen.
” A bird in the hand…” is how she ended- certainly a different mindset from one year ago.
Grim:
I love the lastest posting on “Craigslist”
RL
Michelle,
In my opinion most everything is radically overpriced.
There were a few lowball offers recently that I thought were halfway decent deals actually. However, these are still very rare all things considered
Wow 20-30% off original asking and this bubble is only starting to deflate.
OOOOHHH NOOOO
RW,
Nothing but standard operating procedure for a number of North Jersey agencies.
RL,
Thanks.. I routinely post in a number of different forums to try to attract new users.
grim
This is just the very beginning of a long multi-year my guess/5 years, maybe 7, downward trend for real estate prices.
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BOOOOOYAH IT’S ALL GOING DOWNHILL!
Sorry Bob, had to beat you to it.
-Richie
YAY…Finally its nice to see that all the waiting is starting to pay off…
grim
front page wsj about mills
this may have an impact on
development in the rutherford
area.. this is an impending
diaster for the meadowlands.
as i said the banks are running
mills corp.
I don’t have access to the WSJ online, if you could email me the article or a link to it, I’d be glad to post it up.
grim
How can I view the lowballs after they’ve been finalized. I don’t see them on realtor.com using the MLS #
richie,
You beat me to the BOOOOYAAAAAAH!
Down prices go.
This is a Good thing….getting things back to historical price levels. need another year or 2 of this.
Have a Great weekend
Bob
grim
six years of financial statements will probably have to be restated,and the Company (Mills)
will be sold.
The meadowlands project has a problem.Once again,,,the pols
have screwed it up
It’s refreshing to see the momentum starting to shift toward the buyers’ side. Another year from now it will be obvious that 2006 was the turning point. This follows prior historic trends where the housing bust occurs about 5 years after a stock market bust.
We’re not in the panic situation yet. Give it a couple of months. There’s no fear yet. Once you intoriduce fear, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Especially when people who are stretched to their limits realize that bankruptcy is no longer in their favor and they won’t be forgiven for their mistakes like they would have been in the past.
-Richie
bless your heart grimster :-)
Any way that we can see these pictures of these homes?
the bottom has fallen out of the market in Ocean City nj.,,
see todays wsj
and you have seen anything yet.
“Or would you say, as a blanket statement, that any and all homes on the market today are, beyond a doubt, overpriced?”
That seems a fair statement to me. Few houses in NNJ have not gone up close to 100% in these last 5 years.
The only way Grim’s statement would not make sense, is if someone thought paying 100% over what a house cost 5 years ago is no big deal.
This section rocks! I have been a reader of this blog for 6 months. Grim, I followed your advice. I found a property in Hopewell, NJ. I stalked it since last summer and noticed that the traffic to see the property was slow and it was overpriced. I bid last week and it was 17% below list, and 35% below original list. The seller finally threw in the towel and hit me. I priced my bid based on 5% appreciation per year for the last 6 years, from the last sale. I am very comfortable with this price. I think it protects me if the market sours. I am telling this story to prove to everyone out there that some sellers are motivated and in some situations they have to unload depending on their financing and other personal considerations. Also, this was not a sub million dollar property. The market is coming off at all price ranges. Good luck to everyone and thanks alot Grim.
I’d love to hear some more, email me if you get a chance.
nnjbubble@gmail.com
grim