Ten day 4th of July forecast: Expired or canceled listing every 4 minutes across MA!

If recent trends continue, over 3,500 MLS listings across Massachusetts will expire or be canceled listings over the next 10 days (ending July 5, 2009). That's an estimated 350 per day, or an amazing one every four minutes.

What does that mean to real estate consumers? Home buyers, who have been timing the housing market, will be able to make offers directly to sellers at reduced prices; sellers can offer their homes at reduced prices and net the same profit. The ability to buy and sell without paying the traditional, two-sided real estate commission could bring some stalled transactions together, as stated in the blog comment below. Think of it as a "commission-free" holiday for home buyers and sellers.

Many times homes will sit on the market and do not sell [because] the seller is held hostage by the commission amount factored into the price. The house might have sold, but that $50K or $100K commission is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The seller can't budge and the buyer often can not stretch to come up with that amount for both sides to make a deal happen in these days of expensive and tight credit. (From comment #20 on recent Boston.com blog post.)

If you are a buyer, sign-up to received daily email updates of expired and canceled listings.

If you are a home seller, we can help in two ways. First, if you are interested in selling "for sale by owner," join one of FSBO seminars or visit our FSBO wiki. If you'd prefer to work with a listing agent, either traditional full fee or discount service, find out how our "Listing Agent Report Card" can help you select the most effective listing agent based on recent MLS statistics.

Here's what expired, canceled, and temporarily withdrawn listings have looked like across Massachusetts during June and July over the past 15 years, 1994 to 2008.

Comments

[krishna]

Recession is really a great storm in every field..
Idaho Real Estate

[imobiliare ploiesti]

Price is the reason of expireds

[imobiliare ploiesti]

All is because few seller agree the price told by broker.
imobiliare ploiesti

[Austin Apartment Pro]

The commission is the deal-breaker? That's hilarious. More like sellers who haven't met that thing called reality. If I felt like I HAD to sell my house in this market, I'd look at the comps for the last 3-6 months only and then chop 5-7% off of those numbers. Saying it's related to the commission is just over-simplifying the matter in most cases.

[Mark Jacobs]

Over pricing of listings is the main reason for all the expired listings. I also found that many of the listings are also in poor condition.

Augusta GA market date http://www.markjacobsrealtor.com

[Dale Monroe]

I am really surprised to see that listings are dropping off every four minutes. Hopefully the real estate market improves soon. Kudos on this blog post.

[Yalova Emlak]

real estate prices depend on demand and demand depends on trust. if buyers trust sellers prices will rise again. but building trust is a time-consumíng-process...

[Ken Azar]

Great post and interesting statistics.

[Buenos Aires apartments]

Recession & price are the pricipal factors in this cancelation.