SELL

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demand begins to reassert itself.

Meanwhile, he said, selling earlier this year will probably net a better return than late.

“If you have a $500,000 house in Chicago, and the price drops 5%, you’ve just lost $25,000,” he said. “That’s why I’m telling agents, ‘Don’t let sellers wait till spring; they’re going to lose money.’” But what does that mean for buyers this year? Why should they buy from those earlyyear sellers if the prices are going to drop further?

Harney good-naturedly espouses a kind of logic that seems endemic to the real estate industry: That it’s always a good time to buy — and to sell.

“There’s no good news or bad news, just news,” Harney said. “Every time a house rises in value, there’s a person who makes money and a person who says, ’Darn!’ “And every time a house loses value, there’s a person who says, ’Darn!’ and a person who says, ’I got a steal!’ “ Buyers, he said, should take a look at those recent charts that show mortgage interest rates creeping up and consider how much it might cost them to wait.

“That cost is going to go up, even as prices go down,” said the former owner of a New York real estate brokerage. “Now is the time to buy.”