News about the development of property prices in France.
In the first trimester of 2012, the big Real estate Agency chain Century 21 has sold 11.4% less houses than in the same period last year. On a national level, the average price went down 2.1%. Prices in Paris stopped going up (-0.1%).
The trend is still down. Of course we have to realise this downward movement of the last years comes after more than a decade of continuous rises, which some say created a bubble in the French property market. And not just in France. In the Netherlands, for instance, it seems houses are overvalued by a whopping 50%.
The estimated over-valuation in the mainland is based on a comparison with other economic indicators, like the development of the wages, inflation, rental prices and prices for a constructible land and construction costs.
The bubble is the main reason for a stagnation of sales. People who want or need to buy another house, can’t sell their existing property and therefore have to wait longer and longer. The market is locked. Only houses that are priced very realistically still find a way to a buyer.
With Immogo, we see this development in ‘real life’. The site statistics have really exploded this spring, with especially in the weekend 2,000 unique visitors and 10,000 page views a day. We also see a lot of information requests through our system. And sometimes the prospective buyers start to negotiate already in the very first contact. Some say they will only come and visit if the owner will lower his price. It certainly is a buyers market!
This week we received the happy message that two houses were sold through Immogo. No surprises here, in both cases the owners told us in advance they had priced their property to sell quickly. Neither felt like waiting for months (and keep paying mortgage and other costs) just to find themselves forced to lower the price anyhow. Both ads got lots of interest right off the bat. With the desired result: quick sales.
The message is clear. If you try to sell your house through a popular real estate site and you receive few or no reactions, this problem is probably not the site, the insert or your house… but the price.