It’s a buyers’ market but the sellers don’t seem to know that.
The market is good but not frenzied like last year.
Slowdown has been happening since last year, and this month is no exception. May is a big month for the key spring real estate season.
Sellers, especially those who were finally decide to get into the spring market have heard of tales of bidding wars and double-digit price hikes, and then valued their homes accordingly. Mona Cohen, an agent with Rodeo Realty in Brentwood, finds herself more often having to play the bad guy with sellers who think their home is worth more than the market will bear.
“They still think they’re in that little bubble of 2013, where you’d put it on the market and have 15 offers,” she said. “That still happens in pockets. But buyers have become a lot more savvy.” Lending standards still tight and the economy still feeling soft, there’s only so much those people will pay.
Indeed, Cohen and other market watchers say they’re starting to see more price reductions as sellers lower their sights to compete.
The median price of a home sold in the six-county Southland was $410,000, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. That’s up 11.4% from the same month last year, the slowest annual gain since August of 2012, and just 1.5% above the median price recorded in April.
