Cleveland homes selling at a loss

CLEVELAND — A recent article published by Axios using data from Redfin shows a growing proportion of homeowners are selling their houses for less than they paid for them. 

Lofaso Real Estate Agent Jessica Chodaczek said this is not something most homeowners should be worried about. 

“The average homeowner should not see this article and be worried that suddenly their property values are tanking. The data does not support that, but anytime you have a volatile market, like, this year has been kind of wild. There’s some people that are trying to ride that wave and didn’t do it well, and they’re seeing a little bit of a loss. But the average homeowner we’re expecting the property values to hold if not increase over the next year,” Chodaczek said.

Chodaczek said the reasons that some homes are selling at a loss are varied.

“Since 2021, we’ve seen such continual large jumps in property values that many people that thought they rode that wave a little longer missed the boat on the timing. We were seeing these huge gains, but that really slowed down this past summer and really slowed down in Q3, for instance, flippers who bought, maybe last winter thinking, hey, I’m going to dump a ton of money into this, but the value’s going to keep going up if they didn’t sell until Q3 They might have actually taken a loss on it,” Chodaczek said.

There are also motivators for why a homeowner might want to sell at a loss.

“Life circumstances have dictated that they need to sell. Getting married, getting divorced, … things like that. The other common one is a job relocation where they need to go and, third, sometimes people have invested in properties and as much as they hate to sell it as a loss that they need to get it off their books and to move on to the next project,” Chodaczek said.

Homes that are having the most success right now are the ones that are priced correctly for the market and in good condition. 

Chodaczek said this comes with proper maintenance and being aware of lead safety, especially if it is an older home, like many of the houses in Cleveland. 

“So the more that you can put, in a lot of it’s elbow grease, it’s deep cleaning, it’s decluttering, it’s doing those minor repair issues that have been lingering for a while. Those are all things that are going to impress buyers and help you get the sale quickly,” Chodaczek said.