A 'Bitter Pill to Swallow' for 'Hungry Agents'

The Sacramento Bee checks up on area real estate agents.

[I]n a trade so often marked by optimism, they're steeling colleagues for the unpleasant but necessary task, they say, of persuading homeowners to quit balking and lower prices. But not to "rock bottom," they add, which invites insulting offers from emboldened buyers.

"As agents, we have to do that, said Tina Ledbetter, a Roseville resident who's been in the business 30 years. "But it's a hard pill to swallow."

Amid the lagging sales prices and 14,600 homes for sale in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties at the beginning of July, Ledbetter and other top sellers recently advised 80 colleagues on survival techniques as today's tougher market increasingly winnows out the weak and unprepared. Some agents said they're already seeing associates departing for more lucrative work...

Ledbetter told agents they should be basing their asking prices on actual sales prices received elsewhere. That's the opposite of the boom-era and still-common practice of basing prices on others' asking prices. What Ledbetter's advice typically means is lower initial asking prices.

In a sales report last week, Mike Lyon, head of Lyon Real Estate, estimated that only one in seven homes for sale in El Dorado, Placer and Sacramento counties is priced to sell.