The ultimate real estate challenge: selling that condo
Think it’s difficult to sell a single-family home these days? Well, it is. But it’s even more of a challenge to sell a condominium.
The National Association of Realtors yesterday released its sales data for the month of October. And while the sales of existing single-family homes were down, the numbers for condominiums were even worse.
Existing condominium and co-op sales fell 9.1 percent in October. The news is even worse when you compare condo sales year-to-year. Sales are down a whopping 20.2 percent from October of 2006. In a sliver of good news, those condos that are selling are fetching a higher average sales price. The Realtor association survey shows that the median existing condo sales price stood at $223,500 in October, up 4.9 percent from a year ago.
This news is not surprising. It’s always more difficult to sell condominiums, mostly because there is so much competition for each unit. Often, several sellers in a building will be trying to move their nearly identical units at the same time.
Then there’s the fact that builders have added so many new condominiums to the nation’s housing stock in the last five years. Sellers trying to move a 30-year-old unit may struggle to compete with that 1-year-old condo across the street that’s also on the market.
My advice? Be patient if you can. Someone will buy your condo, eventually. If you’re selling an older unit, or one that sits on a busier street or has some other unfixable problem, consider lowering your price a bit. And, of course, if you don’t have to move, don’t try to sell your condo in this market. Wait it out until the market picks up again.
Tags: condominium-sales, National-Association-of-Realtors, October-home-salesRelated Stories
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