Price. Condition. Location. Supply exceeds demand. Gee, that was pretty easy. I could end now and get some recreational reading time in. But that would not be very fair to my faithful readers, who I've been thrilled (and relieved) to discover really are out there, and by the way, "Thanks(!)" for letting me know.

So I could ante up a few more factors like poor marketing and lack of availability for showing and even a couple paranormal factors, but I'm definitely not going there.

Since my mantra for the past six months has been "patience" or "aggressive pricing" (along with proper preparation, of course), it's likely I've already written about that pretty recently. However, that concept has everything to do with this subject, so I'm inclined to elaborate on it yet again. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a mantra if I only said it once anyway.

Before I get all the way into that, I would be remiss not to provide some specifics regarding the very turbid state of the local (meaning all of metropolitan Denver) housing market.

Almost eight years ago, I began logging certain real estate sales data, by county, city, and property type, which allowed me to quantitatively answer the most recurring question every real estate agent hears, and that is, "How's the market?" Though this may for some be just a casual conversation opener, I believe for most it's a real question. To these I have real answers, not simply anecdotal responses relative to my personal activity at the time the question is posed.

To create this knowledge base, I record and graph, among other things, the average days on market (DOM), average sale-to-list (price) ratio and sale-to-original-list (price) ratio for sales over the most recent twelve months, and the current absorption rate, which is the ratio of demand (current contracts) against supply (current inventory).

Over this eight years, these graphs show the "dot-com bust," the "9/11 effect," the "jobless recovery" (aka "no recovery at all" in real estate because interest rates could be 0 percent and folks with no jobs won't buy houses), and now the "foreclosure dump." Within this eight year span, we are, at this very time, staring at the lowest absorption rate I've measured, and that low hit three months earlier than the usual low point for the usual yearly cycle. This is alarming for many consumers and professionals alike.

And yet, unless one is already in dire straights, there's no need to panic. There is, however, a great need to be pragmatic. If you have a very good reason to sell right now, just know that in lieu of "patience" or "aggressive pricing" you may be very disappointed. My personal recommendation goes to the side of patience, but in practicality, pricing must at the very least be "competitive." Otherwise, this is just not the right market, and another one to two years will bring a reasonably different expectation.

So the biggest reason homes aren't selling is this: (drum roll) There aren't enough buyers. Unlike my opening, tongue-in-cheek statement, I really don't mean this simplistically. There is presently a false division between supply and demand in our area, driven in large part by a media barrage of national housing woes in areas that had hyper-inflated over the last five years, and are now rightfully correcting.

Though the really bad news may be in places far from here, it still breeds fears here at home that have become exacerbated by our spate of foreclosures and glut of built-up inventory. So buyers who rightfully should be taking advantage of this terrific inventory, along with low interest rates and uninflated prices, have paused and settled into "wait and see" mode. This is unnecessarily depressing what ought to be a vibrant buyer's market. Every home in the market could lower their price 10 percent or 20 percent and there still would not be enough buyers, although a few more investors would certainly consider wading in.

Truly, many homes are unsold and even un-shown because they are not priced competitively. Many are not properly "prepared" for a competitive market, and for those, only below-market pricing will affect a sale. Some are poorly marketed and some set unrealistic showing restrictions. Without question, serious sellers absolutely MUST have a serious sales plan to attain the best market price available. Bottom line: Until more buyers come forth, only "patience" or "aggressive pricing" can be counted on to get just about any given home into the coveted "sold" category.