Guess what. The top end is as quiet as we’ve seen it in more than 20 years.
The silence that ain’t golden.
Sign of the times: the number of agents who have abandoned ship for points north. The town is near-deserted.
That’s a worry – or should be for their clients. There are agencies which have not been able to round up even skeleton staffs.
[pullquote]…shut doors do not sales make.”[/pullquote]Players, shut doors do not sales make. If you’re not in the game, cash in your chips and leave the table.
And, by the way, while you have been gone there has been an exceptional transaction or two – they have followed multiple and expensive ad campaigns and in one case the deal was done several light years below a past vendor bid. The have-to-sellers still have to sell.
But they are the exceptions. The underlying problem at the top end is still the lack of choice – the vendors who won’t come to the party until they hear the music start and who also want to be sure that when they come to buy there will be something there worth buying.
Impasse. Gridlock.
A market so frozen that even some agents are refusing to list properties they know are over-priced. They can’t see the value in all that circle work when there’s nothing to show at the end.
Who is to blame?
Everyone. Everywhere you look there are fingers being pointed. (Our view? It’s the industry itself – it is finally discovering that you can’t fool all the people all the time.)
Adding to the confusion are stats for everyone. Whatever it is you want to prove, you’ll find stats to fit. The hills are alive with the mutterings of pundits. Everyone can explain everything. Trouble is, they rarely agree on anything.
Our expectation? We are in rare agreement with the REIV: don’t expect any significant change at the top end until the Olympics are well over.
If then.
David Morrell
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