other sellers in your hood gonna love you for 'giving away' your house and setting a new low.

I never gave it a thought. I should worry about other sellers? When you sell your house you be sure to check with the "hood" before you set your price. There are 5 other homes for sell in my "hood" that I can throw a rock at and hit from my yard. Mine is sold. What an ignorant reason for not selling a house that you own for whatever price you want. And, by the way, I did not give it away. I paid $194,000 for it in 1994.

other sellers in your hood gonna love you for 'giving away' your house and setting a new low.

That must be why so many sellers are holding the line on their price (and not selling their homes). It must be some new kind of solidarity movement.

azsailor, you did nothing wrong. The house sold for what the market would bear. That is how markets work and anyone that thinks "holding out" or "taking one of the team" is a smart strategy, will be left holding the bag. In a declining market if you want to sell, you need to price aggressively. As interest rates go up, home prices are going to fall further to pay for the rate increases.

I sold a house in November in under 90 days in a dead SFla market. I went on priced with everyone else around $399k. Some that had been on for 6months. We had one house near us that went on at the same time and on advice of their realtor, priced $3k below us. We were having ok traffic but no offers. We then got news through the grape vine that a home similar to ours was under contract for $378k. We immediately dropped our price to $375 and got a contract within a week for $369. We closed under 20 days and kept our mouths closed about being under contract. The house that went on the same time as us sold in April for $312. There are homes in there that have since sold for under $300k.

Good for you!! Prices are going no where but down here in Phoenix. Even when the market recovers (so they say) here next year, prices will be lower, though it might not take as long to sell. You were blessed to get out now for the price you did.

I'm a miserable son of a gun here in Phoenix. Sounds all too similar. Started out $475 on Feb 1, all the agents thought that was very competitive and house showed beautifully. 5 weeks later, $450. Received offer for $435 from investor (who actually contacted me by letter, not knowing my house was listed, so had nothing to do with the MLS), that fell through 2 weeks later. May 10, new realtor, new price at $435 and thought my house would FLY off the street compared to the comps. DH lost his job this past week so we lowered to $425 on Monday. No showings at the new price so far. >:( If this keeps up, we'll just have to cut the price and dump it in the next month. It's a horrible, horrible feeling.

Julie, since you're now even more desperate to sell since dh lost his job, you can't afford to have this house on the market. Do a drastic price drop. If you now have no income coming in, you could be facing foreclosure and get nothing out of the house. At least with a sold home and a lower price, you will get out with some money and a fresh start.

Now is not the time to be dickering with the market or the price. You need to sell pronto!

BTW, what did you pay for the house?

First of all you guys need to take a chill-pill and see the sarcasm in my comments above.

I would rather see a sudden 20-50% price drop in one year and just be done with this slump rather than seeing the market go through slow painful downturn for the next 5 - 10 years...wish there was at least one seller like you in every hood. On top of that rising interest rates will have direct effect on the house prices fueling the downward trend.

Julie - Instead of always staying behind the curve I think you should take a hit and drop you price or you may end up chasing the market all the way down...also there is something called short sale...I am not a finance expert but I think your lender should be able to give information on that.

try 99, Sorry, it's hard to hear the sarcasm in print. This is a instance where you need to use a little emoticon. ;)

Thanks for all of your comments. Try 99, I can see where your comments might have been "tongue in cheek", but my first reaction was that it was criticism for "giving it away". Anyway, no hard feelings - I feel too good.

Congrats on the sale! When do you close?

Julie - Instead of always staying behind the curve I think you should take a hit and drop you price or you may end up chasing the market all the way down...also there is something called short sale...I am not a finance expert but I think your lender should be able to give information on that.

I agree, considering in her other thread she states that a couple houses nearby went for under $400K or slightly above - can't remember the exact numbers.

no hard feelings guys! azsailor I think you made a wise business decision by taking a hit on the sale price and cutting your losses rather than riding the market down.

Good luck with your move and new house :)

Congrats on the sale. You didn't take a hit...you bought it at 195,000 and sold it at 435,000. That's more than 100% profit.

I think many of us are in the same boat. We bought and housing appreciated, and then we got "big eyes" from the wild appreciation a couple of years ago. Now that the bubble has burst, we have to sell at what the market will bear, which for many of us will still be profitable. But if compared to the sale prices of 2005, it feels like a hit.

Good luck to all of us!