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"It's pretty much a normal market, and I'm basing that on a period of 31 years," he said.
Houses may be on the market longer than in the boom years, but "homes are selling and buyers are buying."
Jane Fairweather, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Bethesda, said that "this is not a market for the casual seller" who is simply testing a price. "Whatever the reason -- getting a divorce, getting married, getting a job out of town -- any of the number of things in life cause them to be serious sellers," she said.
"There are great opportunities for the serious buyers. They can negotiate with the sellers," Fairweather said.
Real estate agents said they are still seeing resistance from some sellers to adjust to the reality of the market and lower the asking price.
"You don't have a market problem if you price it right," Fairweather said. "There are buyers [who] won't a pay a dime over fair market value, what they believe it to be."
Y. Chang, an architect who bought a single-family house in Montgomery County as an investment, said he has been bitten hard by the reality of the market.
In 2000, he bought a three-bedroom rambler in Rockville for about $135,000. He later added a second floor.
"When I started the renovation project, pretty much in the beginning of 2007, I knew things were bad, but I didn't realize how bad things were," he said. "I thought a good product will sell, no matter what.
In June, he put the now-five-bedroom, four-bath house on the market for $649,000. He lowered the price to $599,000, then to $499,000. He sold it a week later.
"I'm a victim of the market," he said.
Anne Gagen had a better outcome.
A banker in St. Louis, she was selling the Bethesda home that had belonged to her parents, now deceased. She asked for $849,000. The home was listed around Sept. 10.
"We got a contract on Sept. 13," she said. "We got the asking price. We had the right real estate agent who knew how to market the property."
She said, "When you have a good location and there's not a lot of inventory, and there are people who have to move for whatever reason, there are buyers out there."
