I don't know how many listings I see these days with the words prominently displayed.

MOTIVATED SELLER!

First of all, what is a "motivated seller".  After all, shouldn't all sellers be motivated in order to place their house on the market?  Yes, I know what this means.  It means that the seller desperately wants to sell the house and will look at any offer.

It also tells me that I would be crazy to put anything near a full price offer on the property.  After all, the seller obviously wants to get rid of the thing and is obviously having a hard time finding someone that wants to buy it.

Of course, how much I should take off is the big question.  Will the seller be offended if I take 30% off the price?  The seller is motivated, but how motivated is he?  That's part of the problem with doing this.

If the seller is truly motivated, then just drop the price of the house!  He doesn't need to drop it to the absolutely lowest price, but the more the price of the house is dropped the more interest there will be in it.  A lot of people these days will not look at a house outside of their price range. I still see people who have an absolute limit in the price of the homes they look at and do not want to look at something over that price - regardless of what we can get it for.

Certainly the seller should leave some room for negotiations in the price, but if the property is priced significantly below market value it will get sold - even in today's market.  Recently I priced a home well below market value and received six offers on it - and the home was a rather expensive one.

So if you have a motivated seller, or are a motivated seller, do not advertise this with words in your listing - advertise it with what buyers are looking at these days - the price.