Wednesday, February 01, 2006

If You Build It, They Will Come?

Yet another story about home builder incentives. Now sales commissions for real estate agents are added to the mix.

Some builders have been dropping prices on new homes in San Joaquin County recently to boost winter sales. Patrick Bill, with Preferred Real Estate Group in Tracy, said some home builders are now offering to pay sales commissions to real-estate agents who bring buyers, paying to landscape front and back yards, and giving closing-cost credits to buyers. Jerry Abbott, co-owner and president of Coldwell Banker Grupe real-estate firm in Stockton, said that until a few months ago, he hadn't seen that for at least three years because builders had such an easy time selling whatever they could build...
The piece also reports that existing home sales are down 24% in the Central Valley.
Meanwhile, a new report from the California Association of Realtors said that statewide sales of existing homes in December were down nearly 18 percent from the previous December, though the median sales price of $548,430 was up nearly 16 percent from a year ago. In the Central Valley, December sales were down nearly 24 percent year-to-year, but the median sales price of $354,790 was up 17 percent from $303,320 in December 2004.

3 comments:

Lander said...

Thanks to a reader for this article.

B. Durbin said...

"statewide sales of existing homes in December were down nearly 18 percent from the previous December, though the median sales price of $548,430 was up nearly 16 percent from a year ago."

though?

Cause and effect, anyone?

Out at the peak said...

"The supply creates demand." Someone said this on another blog. I don't know if they really thought that or were joking.