How Do You Figure Out How Much to List For When Selling Your Home?
I have written many times about the dangers of overpricing your Wilmette, Kenilworth, or Winnetka home. Overpricing may, in fact, leave you with even less money.
How Do You Figure Out How Much to List For When Selling Your Home?
Picking a list price is not rocket science. When you are working with your Listing Agent, they will bring comparable sales in your neighborhood to you to review. These are the sales that appraisers hired by the buyer will be using to determine if the sale price is a fair price. After all, a bank isn't going to lend more money on a
home just because the seller wanted to sell for more money. And a buyer who can't get a loan is a buyer who can't do business with you.
So looking at the recent sales is the best way to figure out your list price. If you have things the other didn't have, add the appropriate amount to the list price. If you don't have things the comparables did have, take away the appropriate amount from the list price.
What you DON'T do is figure that you bought the house for X number of dollars two years ago and can't stand to lose a dime, and price it high enough to cover the commissions and closing fees and leaving with a small amount of profit. It doesn't work that way. If that method (I'll call it the What-I-Want-To-Profit method) says you should sell your house for $470K and the comps tell you the highest neighborhood sale, similar to yours, was $420K, well, putting the extra $50K in the list price is a waste of your time.
The real estate market isn't concerned with what you feel a fair profit from a home should be and working backwards. The market is only concerned with what the similar home is selling for to other buyers. And if it's selling for less than you're asking, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Chris Ann Cleland, Associate Broker- Licensed in Virginia, GRI, SFR, Northern Virginia Short Sale Specialist. Affiliated with Long & Foster, 7526 Limestone Drive, Gainesville, VA 20155. To contact Chris Ann, call 703-402-0037 or email chrisann@LNF.com. Or you can visit her website: www.nvarealestate.net.
Header is a photo of Braemar in Bristow, VA during one of the blizzards of the 2009-2010 winter season.
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