In 1997 a client of mine asked me to stop by his house because he owned a lot in Sea Pines and he wanted me to tell him what the lot was worth.  I did my homework and told him the lot was worth about $400,000.  In 1998 he called me and said, “Jim, you are not going to believe what happened – someone called me up and wanted to buy my lot and he paid me $400,000 for it so I went ahead and sold it to him”.  I was upset and told him I could not believe he did that because the lot was now worth $500,000.  He was upset and said, “you told me it was worth $400,000″.  I told him that when I told him the lot was worth $400,000 was over a year ago, and now with what is going on in the market, prices have risen.  He then said that he should have called me and he felt so bad. 

I think this proves a point that real estate prices change from month to month based on what is going on in the market. 

I recently listed a house and I told the guy we would be able to get him around $450,000.  As you know with what is happening in the Hilton Head Island Real Estate market, prices have been dropping.  We finally got an offer for $440,000 and he kept saying, “but you said you could get me $450,000″.  I told him that was several months ago and the market has dropped a little bit and this is close enough.

I recently shared with someone that when you call your stock broker you ask them what your stock is worth today.  You don’t tell him that you talked to him a month ago and he said the stock was worth $50 so sell it at $50.  He might say it is worth $52 today or he might say it is worth $48 today because stock prices fluctuate.  Housing prices fluctuate, 2 X 4 prices fluctuate, gas prices fluctuate, bananas at the grocery store fluctuate.  All prices fluctuate based on a number of outside forces that affect any market at any given time.