Unrealistic Sellers' Expectations in Boston Luxury Real Estate

Although the high end Boston luxury homes market stays strong, buyers are also  more market educated and price sensitive than ever before. For the most part, buyers do their homework online with all the data available to them before they even venture out to look at properties or connect with a real estate agent.

The difficulty that we agents are encountering is that some sellers of unique, Boston luxury homes refuse to look at the available data. They don’t want to see prices of comparable buildings, sales and neighborhoods or rely on the expertise of their agent.

Some sellers prefer to price their homes based on the highest sale price of Boston luxury real estate with complete disregard to the similarity of buildings, locations, services, etc. The sales in brand  new, super luxury towers that command  high price/sq’ sales cannot be a good benchmark in trying to price a unit in a luxury building that was built 15-20 years ago with lesser amenities…regardless of how fantastic the unit is. Sellers should compare their units with similar buildings and units to get the most competitive price, instead of comparing to the overall Boston luxury real estate market in general.

By mispricing units, sellers discourage savvy real agents from bringing their clients, because clients figure out the difference really quickly. We a lot of over pricing in the marketplace, and units either stay on the market unsold or take much longer than anticipated to sell.