Motivated sellers skewing market?

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Still playing catch-up from the weekend: This interesting LATimes piece from Sunday argues that motivated sellers -- builders and banks -- are hurting individuals who are trying to sell their homes:

‘Are you a homeowner who is having trouble selling your house? National housing experts say you can heap some of the blame on those big builders with their much-ballyhooed sales and the banks that have put too many foreclosed homes on the market.’

One theme of the article is that price cuts by banks and builders establish new, lower ‘comps’ that leave sellers of existing homes with prices that are suddenly too high. Emailer JJ isn’t buying this line of logic: ‘Nowhere in the article does ... anyone interviewed for it even contemplate the question: ‘Is my asking price too high?’’ Fair point: maybe you can’t sell your house because you’re asking too much.

Our take: We’ve heard often -- just last week, from the California Association of Realtors -- that this housing slump won’t be as bad as the last one because the economy is fairly healthy, and thus there aren’t as many motivated sellers as there were during the recession of the early 1990s. Really? Here we have an article in which real estate professionals are complaining about motivated sellers -- banks and builders -- and how they are driving down prices.

Thoughs? Comments? Email story tips to lalandblog@yahoo.com
Photo Credit: Reuters
Hat tip: JJ