You Have to "Sell" Your Listing Price Three Times

You have to price your property correctly right from the start to get it sold in a reasonable amount of time.  Your Buyers are out there looking; they know the inventory.  Their agents are checking the MLS constantly looking for new listings.  If your listing matches the Buyer’s search criteria they will be visiting your property as soon as possible.  To keep your  property from sitting on the market for months and months, right from the start, it has to be ready to show, inside and out, and your listing price has to be correct; you are going to have to sell that listing price three times.

 First, you have to sell your listing price to the real estate agents.  If your property is overpriced, the real estate agents will most likely not even show it, why annoy the Buyers by showing them an overpriced listing?  When the listing price is out of the price range the Buyer has asked to see, your listing won’t even show up when searching the MLS.  Even if you think the price is “negotiable”, a Buyer will not even be considering your property since you priced yourself right out of the agent’s search results.

Secondly, you have to sell your listing price to the Buyers.  With all the tools available to Buyers on the internet they have become very educated.  Most Buyers start their home search on the internet weeks before contacting an agent.  They have a pretty good idea of general home values.  If your property is overpriced, why would they want to deal with you when there are so many other properties on the market to choose from?  If you think, well I’ll just test the market at this price and if nothing happens in a few weeks I can come down.  Well guess what; wasting that time probably cost you that Buyer that has been out there looking.

And lastly, you have to sell your listing/sales price to an appraiser.  Let’s assume you did receive an offer at your high list price; it won’t appraise.  And if doesn’t appraise you usually don’t have a sale.  Mortgage companies are not going to lend more than what a property appraised for, and most folks, especially nowadays, will not pay over appraised value.  So at this point your choices are to take your property off the market, renegotiate the sales price, or put your property back on the market; though you’ll find yourself in the same boat again.

When a real estate agent advises you about the real estate market; please listen and ask questions.  I tell my homeowners that I would rather have them turn down offers than not receive any offers because they are overpriced. 

So remember, you need to sell your listing price three times; to the real estate agents, to the Buyers, and to the appraiser.