It appears that the recent sellers market is coming to a close in much of the country, including several areas that have been hot spots in recent years.

According to figures cited in the Wall Street Journal Online, it appears that the recent home sellers market is coming to a close in much of the country, including several areas that have been hot spots in recent years, such as San Diego, Phoenix, and Boston.

In San Diego, there are some agents who are advising their clients to offer buyer's brokers a three percent commission, instead of the 2.5 percent rate that had been relatively standard for the past few years. Sellers are increasingly being asked to help with buyers' closing costs, as well.

In Phoenix, which has been one of the hottest markets in the U.S., houses often were sold within as little as twenty-four hours as recently as this summer. However, over the past several months, the number of houses available for sale in Phoenix has ballooned from some 5,400 to more than 17,000, which means that competition for buyers has become fierce, causing price reductions and other marketing tactics to increase dramatically.

Boston has also been hard hit, with prices falling dramatically as jobs are lost and more houses begin to flood the marketplace. Mapass, an appointment scheduling service serving real estate brokers, estimates that the average number of home showings in Massachusetts fell twenty-five percent in September, compared with the same period of 2004.

There are a few areas that are bucking the trend, but in most of America, buyers are gaining more negotiating power than they have had in a number of years. They're asking for concessions that include repairs, painting, and redecorating, as well as significant help with closing costs and lower sales prices.

As an indication of the current trend away from the prolonged sellers' market in the U.S., a buyer for several stores catering to real estate brokers in northern Virginia says they're having difficulty keeping "Price Reduced" signs in stock.

This may be a difficult trend for sellers to adjust to, but with rising interest rates, higher gas rates, increased fuel bills, and fewer buyers looking at homes, it's inevitable that sellers will need to become increasingly more innovative if they're going to sell their homes quickly and for the best price. It appears that 2006 will see a reversal of the sellers' market we've come to know over the past few years.

Copyright Jeanette J. Fisher