Owners might dream of selling their properties at good profits by quoting high prices, but now they are selling their properties at lower than the listed prices. Listed prices are being dropped popularly these days to increase sales during these economically lean times. But this does not seem to achieve the intended purpose very well. According to Trulia, property tracking company, every fourth home is being sold at a discounted price for the last one year. The discounted amount is usually 10 % of the original price. This discount has remained constant for quite some years to come now.

High end properties are being sold at greater discounts. The common discount percentage for properties belonging to the lavish categories is about 14 % which is much more than the price discount for the normal properties. Media reports such as that of the National Association of Realtors might boast of a 11 % increase in the sales of properties but when one comes to realize that this increase in sales is because of the heavy cut in selling prices, one might not be actually happy about it, if he is the owner of a property. What’s the point in selling a huge number of properties when the price that you fetch on those is actually low? The home buyer tax credit was another reason why the sales of properties increased.

The areas in which the maximum foreclosures have taken place i.e. the areas around Fresno, Las Vegas, California  and Detroit the slashing of listed prices has reduced to a certain extent, but those few who are offering the discounts are slashing the prices very much. They are slashing the prices by a good 15 % -25 %. That’s quite a bit! If you compare this to the national average of discounted percentage, you’ll see that in these areas it is 10 % more. According to recent reports from Trulia the slashing of listing prices seems to have stabilized quite a bit in hard hit areas. Nowadays property owners are not being forced to lower the listed prices of their properties.

The  sale percentage of homes was in a way made to compete with the percentage of foreclosures and that is the reason many of the owners had to sell off their properties at very low prices. As a part of competing with foreclosures, the property owners had to offer their properties at a price lower than that offered by banks for the foreclosed properties. People naturally bought foreclosed properties as they were being offered at a very cheap rate.

As the tax credits enhance the buying potential of the customers. The people who wanted to sell their properties a couple of years later would want to sell them right now due to the tax credit advantage. This increases the supply of homes which influences the pricing.  The best thing that a home owner could do at this moment is to price his property a little above the local price so that any instability in the prices is adjusted well.