Bogus relist of the week

MBC has commented before on the annoying practice of "re-listing" homes to conceal their recent market histories.

Today's offender is 3104 Maple, new construction in the Trees. Today marks its 246th day since first going on public offer (Sept. 20, 2006).

But with a fresh new MLS number, today it's got ZERO days on market!

There's not even a new price to go with the new listing. It's still at $2.549m, a token $50k off its initial list, but that reduction was made some time ago.

It boggles MBC: Who is supposed to be fooled by these relistings?

Let's assume a buyer is working with a competent realtor at some point – they're going to get the real story. If the property has been lingering like this, you're in a good position to seek some sort of bargain. Your realtor will tell you so.

So sellers, and seller agents, do you do the relisting to fool all those naive buyers who are out to spend $2m+? Aren't you really fooling yourselves?

Sure, it's a struggle to have your property out on the market for 100, 200 or 300 days. And new construction in the Tree Section is a bit glutted at the moment, so you'd kind of prefer to not look like the forgotten deadwood on the market.

So the solution is... wipe the slate clean and pretend history never happened?

MBC was chatting with a nice Seattle realtor the other day, who says their MLS doesn't allow relistings like this at all, not without a major price reduction and/or serious time off the market.

Maybe we had conventions like that in the South Bay too at one time, but those days are gone.