Monday, August 07, 2006

More On Seller Psychology

Having posted a little on buyer psychology, what about today's seller psychology? Denial and anger. This according to Time:
The house party had to end eventually, even if sellers refuse to believe it. Many remain defiant to the point of delusion. ‘We’ve had sellers’ markets for the last five years, and they’re transitioning to buyers’ markets,’ says David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. ‘Sales go down and prices follow. Sellers are stubborn, so there’s a standoff.’

Experts in market psychology say stubborn sellers have a classic case of denial. Richard Peterson, a San Francisco psychiatrist who specializes in financial decision-making behavior, points out that ‘people would rather gamble and hope prices come back. They ignore information suggesting that prices are dropping.’

Conversely, when investors see prices rising, they get overconfident, the hot-hand bias that leads folks to think a basketball player will sink his fourth shot after making the prior three, even though probability says the odds are the same for every shot. That explains sellers’ reluctance to cut prices, Peterson says.
Stay tuned to this channel as next week we do a special on real estate agent depresson and suicidal thoughts.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

About a month ago I was getting groceries and encountered some yuppie scum yelling into his celtel about real estate. Specifically, about "How the market's going down, but properties under a million (tarpaper shack or crack house in my part of SoCal) will still hold their prices. They have to! They Have To! THEY HAVE TO!"

In two years, my place (bought when the last crash bottomed out for $100k) should be paid off in full. There should be a lot of better repos and foreclosures to choose from then.

Anonymous said...

Sellers are stubborn, so there’s a standoff.

This David Lereah bozo makes me sick. What standoff? A standoff implies there is bargaining going on between buyers and sellers, but how can this be when there are NO buyers!

Keep up the spin machine, David.

Ali, in Cali said...

Someone should teach a course on this stuff in college.... Unfortunately, the sellers would be too stubborn to sign up for it, or they would be too busy criticizing the prof for his insane ramblings.....

Do you think they will ever see the error of their ways? Do you think it is immoral of me to hope that in a few years, I can point and whisper behind their backs "We tried to tell them..." when they are busily complaining "If only I had been more realistic"???

I feel so rotten for being so amused with their ruinous obstinance, but after all THEY were the ones in denial of the evidence all around them... so how am I supposed to see this as anything other than a soap opera for me to sit back and enjoy??