How Do You Help Sellers Price "Unique" Listings?
This is a great post I read today on pricing unique listings WITH your seller. I thought I would reblog this so others too, could learn from this as well.
As a real estate professional, how do you help price unique listings?
The most important role a listing agent plays is as a pricing advisor for sellers. They need to be able look at properties and give appropriate placement in the local market for accurate listing prices.
Usually, it’s a mathematical equation determined by looking to see what else similar sold in a reasonable distance from the new listing then compare against active listings on the market. Then SHAZAM a listing price is created to start with, one you can tweak lower if the market or seller’s motivation changes.
Price it too high and the house languishes on the market, price it too low and if it sells immediately will there always be a lingering doubt in the minds of the seller AND agent that maybe the house should have been priced slightly higher?
What if…the house is unique? What if it’s the only ultra modern, glass embodied, multi-storied monstrosity among a neighborhood of serviceable cookie cutter single level brick ranch houses? What if…your “new” ranch house listing has been totally gutted and reborn with the kitchen of dreams, the rarest hardwood on the planet and the his and hers bidets in the bathroom?
Or…what if…your new listing is a turn of the century farmhouse? It could be still standing but in desperate need of costly safety or energy efficient upgrades? What if it’s standing strong having been updated at least once in the last century but there are no “sold” or “active” comps to judge it by? Do you dismiss the age significance (or is there any) and proceed solely on square feet, beds and baths, overall health of the house and acreage?
Do you think there’s a point as Realtors when it’s time to advise your seller that their property is unique enough that a licensed professional appraiser’s opinion would be in their best interest?
I bring this topic up because a client of ours responded to a post I did a couple of days ago about 5 Things A Buyer Should Do to Make the Home Buying Process More Efficient. Tip number 5 referred to Buyers having reasonable expectations when making offers on a house. For example, it’s unusual (rare but not impossible) to have offers of $100,000 less than list price be accepted. Our client’s reasonable observation is that there are certain “unique” houses that we’ve been looking at that appear completely out of line ($100,00-$150,000 out of line) with comparables of most things being equal with the exception of age.
ActiveRain appraisers, chime in! I know some Realtors would die before they’d appear to be anything less than expert on all subjects related to real estate in front of the clients. I’m wondering if we aren’t stepping on mushy ground by not admitting that some “unique” property is beyond the scope of our training. We aren’t appraisers after all.
So, as real estate professionals, how do YOU help your seller price their unique listing?
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