is there always one real estate office that...

[onthemove]

puts 'for sale' prices higher than others. I believe there is where i live. At first i thought it was stupid. but i get it now. it helps push prices up. all it takes is that one sale for say 50k more than most and the gates are open. am i wrong? don't get me wrong these type of agents do end up reducing quite a few of their prices advertised, but in the end they surely find a sucker or motivated buyer.

an agent that has been around for a long time in a suburb would know when the right time to do this is.

How can a suburb seriously go from say an average sale (in a particular part of that suburb) of 300k and then 6mths later they are all at 450k minimum. what the heck changed? is it just that the agents are very good at their job? and don't tell me a few 'cafes' can change a suburb.

How would one avoid these type of agents?

please enlighten me.

 

[alexlee]

If you're selling, you want this sort of agent. The agent works for the seller. If they see a hot market, why wouldn't they up the asking price?

Some markets CAN go up that quickly. Perth, for example, doubled in about 2 years from 2004-2006. What changed? Expectations. Mood. Confidence. It's not all about cafes.

Sure, prices stopped growing (eventually), but it hasn't fallen back by much.

If there are enough people who are bidding higher and higher prices, that BECOMES the market.

How do you avoid these agents? You avoid hot markets. You should get a feel for an area after looking around a bit.

But remember, just because a market is hot and asking prices are jumping doesn't mean you're not going to see gains. Again, using Perth as an example, I bought one in 2004 for $150k. Zoomed into the 200s the next year and past 300k the year after that. Around 2002, the house would have sold for maybe 110k, 120k. If you'd bought it around 200k, it would have been a hot market but you'd still be seeing gains.
Alex