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Bright Spots
Jim and Shane Fagan of Alexandria, shown with 19-month-old daughter Tate, recently got $16,100 more than they asked for their Del Ray townhouse.
(By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)
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"If they go full price, there might be some kind of concession on the closing," he said.
Even in trendy neighborhoods such as Dupont Circle, there's room for price negotiation, he said. An example: He said he recently sold a two-bedroom condo on Connecticut Avenue NW for $525,000, or $25,000 less than the asking price.
Some homeowners are pricing the properties above what they think is the market price, "figuring they'll have a little bit of negotiating room," he said.
"But consumers seem to know value very quickly. If you overprice, it's going to sit there."
Other agents warn that padding a price can scare away the true suitors.
"The problem is, if they price it too high, they can lose the buyers" who would actually have been interested, said Robyn Burdett of Re/Max Allegiance in Fairfax, who works in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties.
"Those buyers won't even look at the property," she said.
Jennifer Walker, a real estate agent at McEnearney Associates in Alexandria who has sold some homes in Del Ray for more than the asking price, said the recent multiple bids she has seen bode well for sellers.
But she said the old days are gone.
"I think definitely we're not going to go back to a situation where we see people bidding $100,000 over the asking price," she said, "which was crazy in itself."
