There is a big question going on right now on how to correctly price homes for sale in Bryan, College Station given the current state of the market and the economy in general. Everyone has heard that the local area here has not been hurt nearly as bad as the rest of the nation and that is 100% true.
Largely because of Texas A&M University, and because our home prices have never been grossly inflated from their true value, the market in College Station has remained strong.
The problems that I have seen with getting a home sold are predominately 1) the current buyer can not purchase the home they want because they have to sell their out-of-area home first or 2) the current buyer can no longer get approved for the amount they wanted to spend on a home, thus they are not upgrading to a nicer property, and hence no sale.
I have always believed that it is important to price homes in 5's and 0's and I think that is especially true now. My experience has been:
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That a number ending in 5 or 0 is usually the ending approval amount a lender gives to a buyer
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a number ending in 5 or 0 is the way a buyer usually thinks when searching for a home. An example of this would be, "You are approved for up to 120,000," or "We are looking to purchase a home under 255,000″. This is also how most searches are done for homes for sale on the Internet. Using basic random prices as examples: People rarely search for "a home under 143,000." They either search for "up t0 140,000 or up to 145,000." In my professional opinion, it is human nature to like the home that is more expensive, because that particular property has just a few nicer things/upgrades about it. Therefore, if you are needing to sell your home in the next 30 to 60 days, and to save you an unnecessary house payment or 2 which could cost you more, I think it is important to keep you home priced so that your property is the nicest in the price range. This means, that if your property is worth X dollars per square foot when you multiply that times Y square feet, and you come up with a number like 93,000 it is better to advertise the home at 94,900 or 95,000. While, if your end result is 92,000 it is probably better to price your home at 90,000 or 89,900. This way, you are not competing with homes that buyer can afford that are nicer than your own.
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