Two-thirds of the homes sold in the St Louis 5-County core market (St Louis city and the counties of St Louis, St Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin) during October sold for the asking price or above. As the infographic below shows (exclusively available from MORE, REALTORS®) there were 2,888 homes sold during October in the St Louis 5-County core market with 65% of them selling at the list price or above. One thing to remember about home prices though, and something you won’t hear from too many people reporting prices, is that not all sold prices are the “real” price.
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In many cases, a buyer will increase their offer but then ask for seller concessions (such as for the seller to pay some amount of the buyer’s closing costs). For example, a home may be listed at $300,000 and a buyer, in an effort to minimize the out-of-pocket cash they will need, may offer $315,000 and then ask for the seller to pay $15,000 of the buyer closing costs. The logic is, the seller won’t care because they are still getting $300,000 for their home after the seller concession, which is what they asked for, and the buyer is happy because they saved $15,000 cash out of pocket and added it to their mortgage. The only problem with this is it distorts the true price the home sold for.
For example, if you look at the infographic below, you’ll see once the seller’s concessions are deducted from the sold price, only 59% of the homes sold at or above list price which is pretty significantly different than the 65% I referenced before. The infographic also breaks down the percentage of listings that sold in excess of the list price (both with and without concessions) as well. 