This 7,300-square foot spec house on Granite street is one of the most expensive on the market in Ashland currently. The house created a controversy in 2004 when it exceeded maximum size ordinance standards but plans were submitted before the ordinance was passed. The house is on the market for $3.36 million. Orville Hector | Daily Tidings

Realtors get creative in competitive, recovering market

By Alan Panebaker
Ashland Daily Tidings

The slumping Ashland real estate market may be picking up speed, and a huge inventory and fierce competition are changing the way some brokers look at things.

Average home prices appear to be rising and sales are going down in Ashland, according to Southern Oregon Multiple Listing Services. The market for giant houses seems somewhat stagnant, and getting buyer and seller together may be turning into a more finely-tuned art form. As the struggle to make the sale gets more fierce, brokers are coming up with different ways of approaching the market.

Brokers with Lithia Realty are offering flexible fees for sellers — a practice that might create a bit of turmoil in the real estate market.

Rad Welles is one of these Realtors. He said people who are selling their homes to move or for another “good reason” are adding to those selling for equity, flooding the market. Lithia Realty’s response is to offer a potentially lower rate than any competitor because the price of selling a home has not risen as quickly as the value of some houses.

“We’ve lowered our fees because we believe with prices going up, costs haven’t gone up to sell a house,” Welles said.

Essentially, realtors who sold a house a few years ago for $200,000 could sell the same one for $600,000 today and make three times as much money, Welles said.

“The Realtors in this town are making tons of money,” Welles said.

New business owners Bonnie and Adam Wedemeyer moved to town recently with the idea of opening a buyers-only real estate business in town. Their business, Full Circle Real Estate for Buyers, was something the Wedemeyers thought Ashland needed, Bonnie Wedemeyer said.

“People might want more confidentiality and pure advocacy that I think can only be offered through buyers advocacy,” Wedemeyer said.

Before coming to Ashland, the couple had been vacationing in the area from Hawaii and would always look at real estate. They decided to move here to raise their daughter, and with a buyers’ market in the works, it doesn’t seem like a bad time to them.

After a nosedive of home sales and an increase in February on the time it takes to sell for homes, the real estate market seems to have stabilized. Local real estate appraiser Roy Wright said this is still a struggling market to break into.

“It’s pretty much sales are down across the board,” Wright said. Sales of lower and mid-range priced homes are selling more quickly in Ashland, but then again, a median priced home in the area was $472, 500 according to May MLS statistics. Average home prices rose $68,500 from May 2005.

“Sales in the lower price range always do better than the top end because there are more people looking at them,” Wright said. “Properties under $400,000 or $300,000 get the most movement.”

Wright said Ashland real estate bottomed out in February with 106 average days on the market and only eight sales in Ashland. But people are still paying inflated prices, Wright said. The hope for people like Wedemeyer is that an increased inventory has turned things into more of a buyers’ market.

“If I were a buyer today, I would be making ridiculous offers,” Wright said.

Comparing last June’s numbers to this year, Wright may be on to something. According to MLS, there were 193 listings on the market as of June 15, 2005. As of June 15 this year, 290 listings were on the market. Meanwhile, May sales numbers shrunk from 49 to 35 from 2005 to 2006, and median days on the market rose from 23 to 60 for the same time period. The puzzling continuous rise in prices is the only part that still baffles some Realtors.

Many brokers have different ideas as to why the flood of for sale homes has entered the market. Teresa McCants, principal broker with John L. Scott Real Estate, thinks it’s because of the higher number of variable rate and interest only loans. McCants said many people who got loans in recent years had them at fixed rates for the first three to five years. Now, many people have the option of either refinancing or selling their homes.

“With the higher rates, people would rather sell and get out of the market than pay the higher rates,” McCants said.

Staff writer Alan Panebaker can be reached at 482-3456 x 227 or apanebaker@dailytidings.com.

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