On November 8, the Washington Post wrote this about the real estate market:

In soft and declining housing markets, lenders are making a big deal of “comps,” the comparable sales of properties used as benchmarks in home real estate appraisals. Some sellers are forced to renegotiate lower prices with buyers, even after they have a signed contract. Rather than accepting sales of similar properties that closed as much as six to 12 months ago, lenders and mortgage investors are demanding that appraisers include only the freshest comps, ideally those closed within the previous 90 days, to support their valuations. In Richmond, appraiser Perry Turner of P.E. Turner & Co. said his firm has seen numerous cases where using newly mandated 90-day or more recent comps, as opposed to those six months or older, has contributed to valuations lower than the price on the sales contract. Turner said that in 95% of those cases, the listing and selling agents have gotten together and renegotiated the contract rather than lose the deal

Both buyers and sellers should be wary of prices based on comparable sales more than 90 days prior to the appraisal or “market survey.” Sellers need to be wary because a listing based on even six month old sales might be artificially high so that even if a buyer is found, financing may not be available.

In this eroding market, it behooves buyers to be sure that there is a good contingency for financing and to put little down as a deposit. Sellers on the other hand are motivated to get a large deposit. Financing contingencies are sometimes rather unclearly written, so both sides should be quite clear about the meaning of this part of the agreement.