It’s no secret that there are way more homes on the real estate market than there are buyers.  Particularly challenged are both higher end homes (where have the rich buyers gone?) and the less expensive homes.  I have HAD two listings that can most definitely be defined as affordable.

The problem as I see it is that in the last four or five years, many affordable homes have been purchased by buyers who barely qualified.  Many closed with 80:20 double mortgages – you know… the kind where the 20% mortgage had an adjustable rate and then jumped after two or three years to where the home became unaffordable.  These same homes that have since been foreclosed on are now owned by banks who have listed them extra cheap to ditch them.  They are tough competition with owner-occupied listings.

I had a heart-to-heart with one of my sellers a couple of weeks ago and I suggested she just try to put in some overtime to pay off bills. I said she should take her home off the market and sit tight for a couple of years while we recover from the Great Housing Crash of 2007/08.  Yesterday she told me my advise made sense and she had been working overtime. It wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, so we agreed her house should come off the market.

Today another seller also decided to wait before selling.  Last year his home was worth about $140,000, but today it’s worth about $115,000.  Thankfully he has a potential renter.  (Probably to the people across the street who’ve had their home foreclosed on.  They need a place to live, too.)

So I lost two listings this week, but I don’t feel bad about it.  Instead I’m relieved that my sellers both have options and that they’re being smart in waiting for the market to recover before they sell.  Maybe this is what we need to get a bounce-back… everyone take their home off the market to give the foreclosures a chance to sell.  Then in 6- to 12-months, try again.

And when you hear the media talk about the "Great Housing Crash of 2007/08" remember you heard the phrase here first!