Home Selling Key 4, Priced Appropriately

Home Selling Key 4, Priced Appropriately

This is the final part of a series called Keys to Selling your Home Quickly and for Top Dollar.  The 4 keys are, you must be the

Best Looking,        Best Marketed,      Easiest to See  and   Priced Appropriately

Pricing strategies should be discussed to best match the seller’s total goals.  I always want to have a good discussion with my sellers to ensure I fully understand all of their goals, including timing when recommending a specific strategy. 

There are 3 main factors that need to be considered when pricing a home for the market to obtain top dollar in the least amount of time.

1.       Most Recent Sold Comparables.  A true comparable is a home of similar size, age, location and condition to the Seller’s home.  Appraisers only consider the homes that are sold when preparing their report.  Sometimes a pending property is noted, but adjustments and the final price decision are always based on the sold inventory.  The sold comparables will provide a range to consider when deciding how to price the home.  

2.       Active Competing Listings; this is your competition.  If we don’t consider these homes while determining our pricing strategy, we may be sitting a long time.  Based on what we see here and the strategy we choose to employ we may want to position our price in relation to these homes. 

3.       Comparable homes currently under contract.  When we look at these homes against the ones still on the market, I ask why the buyer choose this one and not the active competition?  How are they different or what did they do differently to get an acceptable offer? 

Factors to consider when looking at all of the comparables;

·         How do we compare in appearance, marketing effort and ease of showing? 

·         What are their days on the market and why? 

·         What does the competition show us about the current trend for similar homes? 

·         What are our relative strengths or weaknesses compared to these homes?

Once we have examined all of this we can determine the range we should be in, how we want to price relative to our competition and how long we may expect to be on the market.

Here are some various pricing strategies and my opinion of them. 

·         Start high and wait for an offer.  Ineffective and usually results in longer than average market time, lower showings and reduced final price.

·         Start low and create a bidding war.  This can be effective, but has risk.  Is the current market active enough to support this strategy?  Would you accept a full price offer if it’s the only one that arrives?  Under certain conditions, if priced at the low end of the range this can work, but be prepared for any market changes that may cause this to blow up.                

·         Start in a midrange point, with a constant eye to the market and be prepared for pricing adjustments as necessary.  This can be effective, but if an offer doesn’t come in fairly soon, the price should be reconsidered. 

Which strategy is right for you?  This will depend on your unique set of circumstances, goals and tolerance of being on the market.  Selling quickly does not mean selling cheap.  It’s not uncommon for a seller to receive an offer early on, reject it hoping for a higher offer, only to regret it later on when a higher offer never appears.  Sometimes, the first offer is the best.  How the offer is handled by your agent is critical.  Negotiating is an art, not a blood sport.  I have been negotiating high ticket sales for 25 or more years and have found a multitude of ways to achieve my clients’ goals. 

It is my conviction that if these 4 Keys are put into place by a knowledgeable and skilled professional your home will sell quickly and for top dollar.  I hope this series has been helpful.  There is so much more I could write, but these are the cliff notes.  In my blog post titled, My Best Real Estate Advice, Buying and Selling Homes, I make the point that I’ve answered thousands of Real Estate questions online and written a few hundred blog posts and I share great information.  But my best is reserved for my clients.  If you are considering buying or selling in the greater Seattle/Eastside market and have found my ideas to be useful.  Give me a call.  I have so much more to provide.