House for Sale: Then $639,900, Now $624,900

Early last month, we saw an open house sign nearby. We were not really shopping for a new house back then (even now), but since it was in the area we like, we decided to take a tour. The house, built in 1998, has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 2 car garage, and a unfinished basement. The total living space is a little more than 2600 square feet and the property covers 0.37 acre.

And the price?

$639,900 and it's for-sale-by-owner!

The overall feeling after the tour could be best described by one word "overpriced." The house is being sold by the owner, it has no study room, no balcony/deck, the basement isn't finished, and, finanlly, the house isn't big. For all of thse, $639,900 was way too high.

We left the house without showing much interest, though we still left our phone number. Later on, almost every weekend we went out, we saw their open house sign, sometims miles aways on the main highway. Apparently, nothing happened. Then one night early this month, we got a call the owner, asking if we were still interested in the house. Interest, yes, but not at price level. Today, out of curiosity, I logged onto the website they provided and found that the sell price has been reduced to $624,900, $15,00 less than what they asked for two months ago.

Frankly, I have to say it's a nice house in a nice neighborhood, but not good enough for the $624,900 price tag. I also feel there is some disconnection between the owner's perception of the market and the reality. With house prices falling by the month every where, this seller did slash the asking price by $15K, but since the starting price was too high, the reduction didn't make much difference, in my opinion. In fact, a quick check of other houses in this area that are currently on the market show that prices for houses with similar conditions (size, age, rooms) range from $560K to $610K, even some houses still underconstruction have lower prices than what this seller is asking for, and this has me wonder what makes the seller so confident about the price of the house, which has been on the market for more than two months already.

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