Well, some of yer colleagues (Northern Virginia realtors) disagree!
Near Nation's Capital, A Hot Market Cools
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO and KEMBA J. DUNHAM
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NORTH POTOMAC, Md. -- After seeing his neighbors sell their high-priced homes in just a few days two months ago, Brian Rabin expected a similar experience when he put his family's three-bedroom townhouse in Gaithersburg, Md., on the market in mid-July.
But after almost a month -- and after lowering the asking price by $30,000, to $649,000 -- he had not a single offer. He decided Monday to take it off the market temporarily. "We are finding it frustrating," he said. "We were hoping to sell quickly, but so far that hasn't happened."
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"There is obviously a change in the market," says Paulette Ladas, a real-estate agent in Silver Spring, Md. "Things are taking a bit longer to sell, and we cannot be as aggressive with pricing as we have been in the past."........
Ron Cathell, an agent with Weichert Realtors, says his open houses, even in the dead of a hot, humid Virginia summer, can draw as many as 60 people. Business was slower, however, last Sunday, when he says only around 20 people showed up to view a $665,000 townhouse in Arlington. "I haven't seen an open house this slow since 1998," he says.....
Among Washington's suburbs, inventories of homes available for sale are growing fastest in northern Virginia, which had about 4,843 homes listed in July, up 26% from a year earlier, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.....
Investors are putting their properties on the market mostly out of fear, says Sue Ko, an Arlington real-estate agent. "People are hearing about interest rates and a lot of other issues they don't always fully understand, so they're considering their exit strategies," Ms. Ko says. "They're getting out of it before the bubble bursts."......
Individual investors in the area also are offering incentives. Manish Paliwal, a 35-year-old Internet analyst from Ashburn, Va., thought the $676,000 home he bought in Lansdowne, Va., in February was a good investment property. But since the market seems to have slowed down, he's not so sure. Not only has he listed the home for $699,000 -- less than the $750,000 at which it was recently appraised -- but he also is offering the agent who successfully sells his home an additional $2,000. "There's a lot of competition out there," he says. |
