There are buyers out there — but they are waiting. They are waiting for sellers to give in and lower both their prices and their expectations.

It reminds me of hordes making a siege on a castle during medieval times. The whole idea behind the siege was to wait out the castle dwellers until they surrendered, starved or came out to fight. The mindset of value-conscious buyers seems to be just to wait until sellers waive the white flag. The white flag in this case is a lowered listing price.





So what does the seller do? Just surrender.

More and more this seems to be the answer. The best strategy may be to surrender earlier than later while better terms can still be negotiated. If a seller overprices the market and slowly reduces the asking price through multiple, modest price reductions, then the result appears to be a disappointingly low sales price.

Buyers today are content to wait. If a seller prices low in the beginning of the sales process then the buyers are called to action by the perceived value and often times multiple offers will result (even in today’s market). The multiple offer scenario drives up the purchase price, and this ultimately is what every seller wants.