May 29, 2008 6:26 pm US/Eastern
Coldwell Banker Puts Hundreds Of Homes On Sale
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Something a bit strange is happening this weekend in South Florida. A major real estate company, looking to ease buyers' fears, is having a "sale." Coldwell Banker is literally knocking 10% off the asking price of hundreds of homes, but is it worth the investment to buy one of these homes?
"It's a great opportunity for the buyer and the seller to come together in tomorrow's pricing in today's world," said Gus Rubio with Coldwell Banker.
For 10 days in June, Coldwell Banker has asked their sellers to slash their asking prices by up to 15-percent to get buyers off the fence.
CBS4's David Sutta spoke to homeowners who agreed to drop the asking prices of their homes, all for the sake of getting buyers to close on a deal.
"A year ago, when we decided to sell the house, if you would have asked me would we have done this I wouldn't have believed it. It's definitely out of the box," said seller Claudia Halwani.
Halwani said they have already dropped their initial asking price by $50-thousand and starting this weekend they will drop it another $50-thousand.
"Maybe this is what is going to cause people to start dropping their prices," said Fadi Halwani. "To realize that some early adapters are doing what we are doing and move the market a little bit and things will start moving."
The question is – will it be enough.
"What this is going to do is bring our buyers and are sellers together with tomorrow's pricing," said Rubio. As to "will it be enough," Rubio replied "that's a great question – we don't have a crystal ball."
Rubio said getting homeowners to participate in the program wasn't easy. Of the 5-thousand sellers asked to drop their price, only 600 agreed to do so. Rubio said many sellers still have unrealistic expectations about the market or can't drop the price because they would then owe more on the home than they could sell it for.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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