Still Waiting for Those Home Prices to Stop Falling?

Which of us haven’t heard something to the effect in recent months that people are going to wait to buy a new home until the prices bottom out or stop falling – as if that is a determinable time that is still approaching?

It’s only natural for people to want to get a bargain and not to feel that they’ve overpaid for something that they could have gotten cheaper – had they only waited or shopped someplace else for the same thing.

I think the internet plays into this scenario a little because there are so many place like bizrate, amazon, pricegrabber, nextag, and similar sites where you can compare prices before deciding who to order from.

Part of this feeling about pricing stems from fear of loss. Some people seem to feel that if they buy something now – supposedly before it reaches its nadir – that they will have paid more than they should have and in fact could get it for less if they just waited.

I mean, who wants to pay full price or even the sale price for something only to find a better price for the same item a few days of even a month or two later?

However, to say that someone will only buy a new home when it reaches its all-time lowest price (for the current cycle) is to say that they have no compelling need for another home. This might be true, but if it isn’t, this argument is only an excuse or a minor diversion to avoid making a decision.

When the customer has stated a need for a new home – or through your own discovery with them you have determined that they really do need a new home and should have one, then any talk of wanting to wait for lower prices or for the market to improve is simply a defense mechanism to avoid making the decision.

For someone who has a real interest in buying a new home, price is only one of the considerations. How well the home meets their needs, the style of the home, the quality of workmanship, where it is located, what it includes, the layout, the warranty, the stability of the builder, and so many other factors will impact the final decision – in addition to the price.

That is why sales are still being made, even in the toughest of markets. The sales pace may be considerably slower than it once was, and the prices may have moderated, but there are still sales to be made.

So let’s focus on the sales that can still be made and not on all the ones that are waiting for the big day when their local newspaper actually runs the front-page story that they’ve been waiting for: “home prices have finally bottomed out, everyone can buy now.”

But what if the newspaper forgot to run the story, and prices in your market have already stabilized?

Maybe the excuse of wanting to wait for lower prices is just that – an excuse. Maybe they didn’t really want a new home all that much anyway.

Oh, one more thing.

For the people who think they really do want a new home but just not enough to make a decision now for fear that they might pay too much for it in today’s market – as they interpret it, you might want to start preparing them for the onslaught of buyers that will surface once that newspaper story runs. Of course, with that much pent-up demand prices are likely to rise – maybe even quickly.