Umm.... No generally they tend to be over priced! I don't know, either it's the agents or the home owners or both but either way they tend to generally price homes on the high side.

That aside, even homes "priced right" in Roselle, Roselle Park or Elmora section of Elizabeth which is right here as well, you can get more for the money plus a better school system, municipal services, lower crime and taxes, etc.. from other neighboring municipalities in the area for the same money. (Just my opinion ).

For the money I'd rather buy in Linden, Rahway, Cranford, Clark, Kennilworth or Union where you can get better schools, lower crime and taxes and more municipal services and programs but that's just my personal preference.

ROSELLE PARK has had 77 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 84.3
Average List to Sale price ratio 95.1% with a minimum of, now get this... 75%, that's 25% over pricing!!! Yikes!

Guess I proved my point...

ROSELLE has had 97 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 112.9
Average List to Sale price ratio 95.3% with a minimum of 38.5%, that's 61.5% over pricing, Geeze...

ELIZABETH Elmora Section has had 46 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 104.5
Average List to Sale price ratio 94.2% with a minimum of 79.3%

Now in contrast
LINDEN has had 194 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 94.7
Average List to Sale price ratio 98.4%

Rahway has had 144 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 88.2
Average List to Sale price ratio 99.7% (Good Job there!)

CRANFORD has had 140 single family homes sold between 6/1/08 to 6/8/09
Average Days on market 70.4
Average List to Sale price ratio 95.6%

Regardless of the reason, agents should not be taking ridiculously over priced homes. They need to better communicate and educate the client and not just take over priced listings with hopes to get them to lower the price later multiple times. This is what gives agents a bad reputation not to mention wastes your time.

Most productive agents won't waste their time with over priced listings or very quickly with get a price adjustment if there is little to no activity.

There are very few homes still getting bidding wars today but that is generally found when prices are under priced, look at this one under priced home in Rahway which sold for 972.1% of the asking price. DANG!!! Yeah you read that right.

Alison,
The short answer to your question is: "it all depends".....

Many Buyers want a "rule of thumb" when placing an Offer, but it
all depends upon how well the Seller/Seller's Agent priced the home
to begin with. In our area, it's been all over the map. We see homes that
land up selling for 75% of the original Asking Price (because they were unrealistically priced!)
to other homes that attract multiple offers and result in selling for OVER Asking Price.
(yes, even in this market, we see homes in Union County getting multiple Offers!)

Marilyn Holda-Fleck
Prudential New Jersey Properties
Marilyn.Holda-Fleck@PrudentialNewJersey.com

I used to work out of Roselle Park, general rule of thumb... The homes are over priced, if they purchased recently (last 3 or 4 years) chances are they will be a short sale.

It all depends on your asking price, how competitively you priced the home, its condition and how it shows and how long it has been on the market. Just a few factors to take into consideration.
Get another CMA done if you havent had one done recently already. If your home is listed ask your agent to do one every month that it does not sell, chances are it may be over priced and you can be chasing the market in a declining market.

Just because real estate sales are up, it does not mean the prices are!

http://www.realrep.com

Hi Alison, Generally speaking sellers in our area are still playing a bit of catch up making generalizations about sales price to list tough to make. As you note, it all boils down to the realism of the sellers in pricing their homes, a truism everywhere. I'd be happy to pull together some market absorption statistics for you for the communiities you've mentioned so you can get your arms around how the market is moving.

Let me know if you'd like me to pull some stats for you - I can get at the data via the Garden State MLS and am happy to do it. Can you provide feedback on price point, I can do some finetuning of the data for you.

Happy to help you in any way I can - you can find me online at http://www.feenick.com

Best,
Jeannie Feenick