This weekend Joe Z. pointed out the pettiness of minuscule price cuts, which have no purpose except to bump homes up to the top of a search for newly discounted homes, usually just in time for weekend open houses. The example he used, a studio in Edgewater whose price dropped by just $4 from its original list price of $123,900, is even more obnoxious than he realized — those four dollars dropped off one at a time, first on May 1, and again on June 12, June 29, and July 30. Can this home’s listing agent really argue that he’s helping a home that’s been on and off the market since October 2007?
Below are more examples of this kind of nonsensical behavior, price cuts of $1 and $10 in two instances, and regular cuts of $100 prior to weekends in another. These aren’t the only “stupid Realtor tricks” from this weekend, either — just the most ridiculous examples I found from a quick search.
- A three-bedroom condo on the Near North Side listed on June 6 for $325,000; cut the price by $100 on July 16, by $100 on July 24, and by $1 on July 31.
- A two-bedroom condo in University Village listed on June 24 for $293,400; the price dropped by $10 on July 31.
- A one-bedroom condo in Portage Park listed on April 3 for $129,900; the price dropped by $100 on June 10, $100 on June 18, $100 on July 2, and $100 on Aug. 2.
Many clients want us to drop $5,000 after being on the market a while. We don’t agree with this for the same reasons of the $5.00 price reduction. We’ve learned our lessons over time and this is from hands on experience.
A price should be pretty scrutinized when the home is listed. If you need to sell and the current price is not doing it fast enough, the reduction must be at least 5% or more to creat legitimate interest (assuming you’re not too out of whack with the market in the first place).