Clients ask me what the one thing is that surprises me the most about real estate.

After being in real estate on Hilton Head Island for 28 years, it surprises me how some people do not understand that there is a market.

When you call your stock broker to sell your stock he can tell you at that exact minute what your stock will sell for.  It does not matter what you paid for it, what you need to get out of it, what you would like to have or what it was worth six months ago.

People understand that about stocks, but for some reason they cannot understand that this is the way it is in real estate.  What is important is what a property will sell for in today’s real estate market.  This number may change from day to day and there are many factors that would make that change. 

If you owned a 2-bedroom Fairway Villa on the Harbour Town Golf Course in Sea Pines Plantation and the villa next doors to yours came on at a low price with the same view, same floor plan and same condition – it definitely affects what you can sell your villa for. 

I always tell my sellers that they need to think like a buyer in a slow market.  If you were a buyer, what would you pay for your villa based on what other villas are on the market.