The Science Behind the Sale

Patience and Compromise Prove the Winning Formula

Time To Wait LaDoris and Steven Puryear needed four months to sell their house in Springfield, but they were in no hurry and got the original list price. (Buyer's Advantage)

Sure, there are plenty of houses sitting and sitting on the market in some neighborhoods. Despite that, there are still sellers getting those coveted contract offers.

Nationally, there's more than a six-month supply of existing homes for sale. In some parts of Northern Virginia, the inventory is more like 8 or 10 months.

So how are successful sellers doing it? The basics triumph in a buyer's market, real estate agents say. Price, location and condition are uppermost.

And sometimes it just takes time. Consider these examples:

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Mike Winder and his girlfriend, Terri Skubel-Lunz, never dreamed that it would take six months to sell their two houses in Frederick.

They decided in September to list his rowhouse in the downtown historic district and her townhouse because they had become engaged and wanted to live together elsewhere. Optimistically, they bought a house in October.

"The thinking was that we'll just take a leap of faith, and we'll sell the houses pretty quick," Winder recalled. But as the days dragged by without offers, "with three mortgages, we felt very stressed."

He said, "We knew what we were doing and we knew what we were getting into, but we still thought we would sell very, very fast." Both houses were in good shape and in good locations.

He was optimistic in part because he and Skubel-Lunz had sold two other homes in the previous three years, and both had gone under contract within two weeks.

But this was a very different market. Skubel-Lunz's three-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath brick townhouse was priced well when it was first listed, Winder said. At $320,000, the end unit, with its new deck and flooring, "was right in the middle of the pricing structure" for similar properties. And in December, Skubel-Lunz, an occupational therapist, dropped her price $10,000.

"But by January, she was really way overpriced" as other sellers also cut by thousands, he said.