Spring housing: 'Strongest seller's market ever'
Even as more homes come on the market for this popular sales season, they're flying off fast.Home prices have now surpassed their last peak, and at the entry level, where demand is highest, sellers are in the driver's seat.
Story by : Diana Olick
Spring homebuyers are pounding the pavement at a furious pace, but the pickings are getting ever slimmer.
Even as more homes come on the market for this traditionally popular sales season, they're flying off fast, with bidding wars par for the course. Home prices have now surpassed their last peak, and at the entry level, where demand is highest, sellers are firmly in the driver's seat.
"I've been selling real estate for 25 years and this is the strongest seller's market I have ever seen in my entire real estate career," said David Fogg, a real estate agent with Keller Williams in Burbank, California. "A lot of our sellers are optimistically pricing their homes in today's market, and I have to say in most cases we're getting the home sold anyway."
Fogg listed a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,240-square-foot home in Burbank for $789,000 and had three offers before the first open house Sunday. In the Los Angeles-area market, that is considered an entry-level home. The open house drew more than 100 potential buyers, most of them already weary of the competition.
"It's very tough. Most of the listings are intentionally listed a little low to get a lot of attention, and it's not uncommon to get 12 to 16 offers on one property," said Jilbert Mosessian, who has been renting in the neighborhood but wants to buy. "In three properties recently, we did our best, we went considerably over the listing price, and we were told that there were still five people above us and they were only going to deal with them."
Mosessian said he will have to try another neighborhood and cut his expectations
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