Sellers slash prices after tax credit ends

Dangers of social networking

Recognizing that homebuyers need more motivation now that a federal tax credit has expired, more sellers are slashing their asking prices by an average 10 percent nationwide. That's $25,000 on a $250,000 home.

by Broderick Perkins
© 2010 DeadlineNews.Com


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Deadline Newsroom - Recognizing that homebuyers need more motivation now that a federal tax credit has expired, more sellers are slashing their asking prices.

As of May 1, 22 percent of listings on the major real estate search engine Trulia.com had at least one price reduction. That's a 10 percent jump from the previous month.

Nationwide, the actual price reductions average 10 percent, but in many major cities they are well above 10 percent, according to the numbers Trulia.com released this week.

The federal homebuyer tax credit of up to $8,000 ended April 30 for civilians, though it won't end until April 30, 2011, for military personnel deployed overseas. The maximum tax credit amounts to about a 3.2 percent discount on a $250,000 home.

The National Association of Realtors attributed a surge in existing-home sales in March -- which rose 16 percent over last year and 6.8 percent from February this year -- to buyers responding to the homebuyer tax credit and other favorable conditions.

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Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist, parlayed 30 years of old-school journalism into a digital real estate news service, the San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group, including DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service and Web site, and the Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's news back shop.

Perkins was the first Examiner to cover three beats for the Examiner.com news service:
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• National Real Estate Examiner

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