Cut price to sell home, area experts say

How do you sell a home quickly in a time of financial turmoil and economic uncertainty?

"Cut the price," say area real estate experts.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a drastic reduction, especially in a stable market like Pittsburgh, where the price of homes sold kept rising in defiance of national trends until a recent slippage.

But no matter what the market is doing, "realistic" pricing is a major part of the answer, experts say.

That was the case involving a split-level house on Greylock Drive in Penn Hills that caught the attention of Josh and Melissa Jones when they started looking for their first home this year.

The couple liked the home, but it wasn't until the owners of the property cut the $129,000-plus asking price to about $116,000 that they seriously considered buying it, said Howard Anderson, an agent with Northwood Real Estate.

Anderson served as a "buyer's agent" for the couple, aiding them in their search for a new home and representing their interests in the sales transaction.

"Josh Jones had driven by it when it was out of their price range, but we kept it on the back burner," Anderson said. "And when it moved into their price range, they made an offer because it was a nice house."

The couple ended up purchasing the home in April, paying $118,000.

"The property had been on the market for five months, but when the owners lowered the price, we had a buyer within four days," said Patricia Wehn, a Howard Hanna Real Estate Services agent who had the property listing.

It's not unusual for people to think their homes are worth more than others do, Wehn said. "But they have to be honest with themselves, price it accordingly and listen to their Realtor who researches everything sold in the neighborhood in the last six months or last year.

"If they price their home accordingly, and it's in good condition, it's usually going to sell."

According to a recent national survey of Coldwell Banker real estate agents, 56 percent said they believe listing prices in their market remain above where they need to be to attract buyers.

In addition, 77 percent said the majority of sellers in their market still have "unrealistic" expectations regarding the initial selling price for their properties.

Thus, Beth Anne Brogan hopes a price reduction will help sell her home on Country Club Drive in Robinson.

With advice from their Coldwell Banker agent, Brogan and husband Darryl agreed to lower their $374,500 asking price by $19,000, or about 5 percent.

"My husband is being transferred to a job in Virginia, and we have to move," Beth Anne Brogan said. "But we put the home on the market in September, and the traffic has been slow. We've only a handful of people," she said. "Now, maybe our luck will change."

The Brogans are among about 700 homeowners participating in a nationwide Coldwell Banker sales promotion that offers homes with prices reduced prices up to 10 percent through Sunday.

Some of the local sellers have agreed to lower prices even more -- from 5 percent to 25 percent -- during that period, said George Hackett, president of Coldwell Banker Real Estate in Pittsburgh.

In May, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services ran a promotion featuring Sunday open houses for about 400 area sellers who lowered their prices by 10 percent or more, and had good results, said Howard "Hoddy" Hanna, CEO of Hanna Holdings Inc.

"In June, right after the sale, our company sold 17 percent of our active single-family houses, but 24 percent of the homes that reduced prices sold," Hanna said. "Then in July, we sold 15 percent of our active listings, including 26 percent that had participated in the campaign."

Home sales in the five-county Pittsburgh region plummeted in August by 25.2 percent compared with the same month last year -- the biggest drop this year -- according to a report last month.

There were 2,516 home sales in August, compared with 3,364 in August 2007. The median sales price declined 4.9 percent, said RealStats, a South Side-based real estate information company. The report covers Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties. August had two fewer selling days this year.

Local real estate officials say home sellers still can get a decent price for their homes in the Pittsburgh region, even when they lower the asking price.

For example, Hanna said figures from West Penn Multi-List Inc., the area's major home listing service, show the average price of homes sold in the region from January through August this year was $151,671, up 0.08 percent from the comparable period in 2007. Those figures cover homes listed by real estate agent members of the Multi-List.