The Kübler-Ross model for dealing with loss and greif is fairly well known.
I think there is evidence that the Real Estate market in NYC is stuck in phase 1 - denial. It's not simply that transaction volume is down tremendously ( April 2020 Manhattan Residential Contract volume was down 80% from 2019) and continues to slide even though this should be prime Spring selling season (Manhattan Residential Contract volume is down >30% vs the same period last month). More importantly there is a denial that the market is distressed in the lack of price reductions. Last year month to date price reductions for residential in Manhattan were 379. This year that number is 100.
Everyone is jumping up and down screaming about how transactions are still being done. But I have seen 2 agents/brokers who have done multiple deals and in both cases they had gotten their sellers back to 2012 or so prices. At the same time I am seeing listings come back on the market at, near or sometimes above what they couldn't be sold for before they got pulled, as well as new listings come on above peak prices of a couple/few years ago.
I don't think this is serving the best interests of either buyers or sellers. It is going to result mostly in both buyers and sellers calling each other unrealistic and frustrating the market. I think agents are unrealistically telling sellers that this time on the market is "free" because they were able to get the "days on market" field on many websites changed to "counting suspended."
But buyers aren't stupid and can simply count from the listing history. Also this change isn't permanent and when it changes back all those days will get tacked on. There is no free lunch. If a seller doesn't need to sell them they shouldn't be on the market right now, and if they do need to sell them they need to mark to market.
No agent it doing their sellers any favors by encouraging a co-dependency with them on aspirational pricing.
Five Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler
Five Stages of Grief - by Elisabeth Kubler Ross & David Kessler explained in their classic work, On Grief and Grieving
grief.com
I think there is evidence that the Real Estate market in NYC is stuck in phase 1 - denial. It's not simply that transaction volume is down tremendously ( April 2020 Manhattan Residential Contract volume was down 80% from 2019) and continues to slide even though this should be prime Spring selling season (Manhattan Residential Contract volume is down >30% vs the same period last month). More importantly there is a denial that the market is distressed in the lack of price reductions. Last year month to date price reductions for residential in Manhattan were 379. This year that number is 100.
Everyone is jumping up and down screaming about how transactions are still being done. But I have seen 2 agents/brokers who have done multiple deals and in both cases they had gotten their sellers back to 2012 or so prices. At the same time I am seeing listings come back on the market at, near or sometimes above what they couldn't be sold for before they got pulled, as well as new listings come on above peak prices of a couple/few years ago.
I don't think this is serving the best interests of either buyers or sellers. It is going to result mostly in both buyers and sellers calling each other unrealistic and frustrating the market. I think agents are unrealistically telling sellers that this time on the market is "free" because they were able to get the "days on market" field on many websites changed to "counting suspended."
But buyers aren't stupid and can simply count from the listing history. Also this change isn't permanent and when it changes back all those days will get tacked on. There is no free lunch. If a seller doesn't need to sell them they shouldn't be on the market right now, and if they do need to sell them they need to mark to market.
No agent it doing their sellers any favors by encouraging a co-dependency with them on aspirational pricing.