Yesterday I wrote about the need to separate yourself from your home emotionally if you want the potential buyers to view your home as a house. 

Today I want to focus on how you as a buyer can set your home at the right price.  Trying to sell your home when it is not market price is like buying a lottery ticket and hoping to get rich.  It just is not a wise way to spend your time or your money. Getting the price right in this buyer's market is another key to actually selling your home.  When property is price right you will have buyer's view your property and you have a good chance of selling it pretty quickly even in this market.  But, when it is priced high people will not look and it will not sell.  In my opinion if you have not had an offer on your home in 30 days it is most likely overpriced.

Separating yourself from your home emotionally is the first step in getting your home priced correctly.  Review yesterday's (11/06/08) blog and Wednesday's blog (11/05/08).  The largest obstacle to being willing to consider the true market value is the emotional attachments you have to your home.  The home in which you raised your home will be filled with memories of raising your children.  Those memories have no value to your sought out buyers.  Your children are priceless to you.  Sorry, but they are not for sell.  All of the hours and sweat you put into improving your home have no value either.  Yes, if you have made attractive improvements then maybe your house has more value.  However when you do your own remodeling projects you naturally will place more emotional value into those same improvements.  That emotional value is worthless to the buyer.  

If you try to sell your home on your own here are some suggestions on finding the market value. 

•A.    Months before putting your house on the market watch for homes that are for sale in your neighborhood and ask your neighbors what they were able to get for their homes.  Remember that your neighbors do not have to tell you the truth. 

•B.      Most communities have web pages with tax records readily accessible.  Go to the tax records and do an address search for your street.  You will have to spend time reading these carefully.  Try to find addresses that are near your home and look for homes with similar square footage as your home.

•C.     Do a search on the web to determine how much your market values have fallen the last 2 years.  If you look at the tax records and take the prices from homes that sold two years ago you will not have comparable prices.  If homes in your community have fallen even 4 percent a year the past two years then you need to adjust the prices.  A 200 thousand dollar sale two years ago will compute to 184,320 dollars today. 

•D.    Do not assume that because you have done major upgrades to your home that you can recover all of the cost.  In this market the upgrades will help sell your home if it is priced right.  However it is very difficult to get complete return on the investment you put into the upgrade in a buyer's market.

Yes, finding a comparable property to compare your home with is critical in this whole process. If you have considered selling your home please give me a call 859.684.5890.  I would love to have a chance to show you how my skills as a consultant, negotiator and overseering of your transactional details will be worth more than you are hoping to save doing your own marketing.     Please do not keep me a secret!    Bless You!  Paul