Pricing Your Home to Sell!

There is also a swirl of talk by sellers, buyers and agents over pricing homes to sell.

Here are a few facts the may offer you a glimpse of why price should be part of your selling strategy.

When we talk about selling strategies for homes this creates a mental picture in everyone mind.  The strategy can be singular...price for example or it can have many facets to achieve the goal of selling.

Personally I don't believe price is the only factor to consider unless you are desperate or have a specific time frame the requires your home sold.  Foreclosure dates, relocation dates can dictate a time frame for example.

Pricing your home to sell as part of your selling strategy can be very powerful.  Buyers are always looking for value.  Sellers have the opposite goal, selling for the highest price!  Since sellers and buyers have opposing goals meeting at a mutually agreeable price is the trick.  Meeting at the price sooner than later is better for whom?  The seller.  Why?  Sellers lower their costs by selling faster.  How?  Simple you don't pay property taxes if you don't own the property.  You do not pay interest on your loan if you sell and payoff your home loan.  You do not have on-going maintenance of your property and home.  It can only take one storm to blow off shingles, one shift in your ground to crack a driveway or a pipe to break to flood the house.  Selling faster is always better...always.  

Selling faster nearly always means you will sell for more money too!  The longer a home is on the market for sale, the lower the sell price will go.  So over-pricing your home can actually get you less money than pricing your home right the first time.

Sellers have been taught through the sale of cars, boats, lawn mowers, tools, tires, yard sales that you must "price with some negotiation room".  So this misguided tactic carries over into selling homes.  I wished I had a dollar for each time a seller has told me, "we need to price our home a little higher to have some room to negotiate"!

This is not a pricing strategy.  This is a guarantee you will be offered less because the value in the eye of the buyer will not be there!

Here is your pricing strategy:

• Review current homes listed for sale that compete with your home.  (Layout, lot or land size, square footage, condition, location)
• Review current homes sold within the last six months. Longer than six months doesn't help you unless nothing has sold.  Look at the list price and the sold price.  This will give you a percentage of difference between list price and sell price.  The closer the number the closer the home was priced to it's real value in the eyes of the buyer.
• Physically see the homes that are competitive to yours.  This will give you a features and benefits review from the buyers point of view.  You may have and edge based on condition or features and then again you may find you don't.  If you price higher than a home that has been updated and your home needs updating you will help sell the competitive home first!