How To Price Your Home For Sale...

The Price is Right Game

There are two ways to approach setting the listing price for your home. One is to list at the very top of your neighborhood price range for comparable homes and lower the price every two or three weeks until it sells. Sellers who select this strategy are usually in less of a hurry to sell and are much more risk averse.

The other way is to list slightly under the expected sales price. These sellers usually want to sell fast. They are actually hoping to boost the final selling price by generating multiple offers and playing such off each other. This pricing idea is generally the better strategy for getting the most money for your home. Here’s how to do it:

Pricing Just Under a Typical Search Limit

Say your home is worth $400,000 as per your Realtor's comps... set your listing price at $399,000. This way, you capture everyone who might be setting their search ranges at $400,000 or less. Just like how most products are priced at retail stores, psychologically, a price that ends with 99 appears to be a better value to buyers.

Better yet, a really agressive asking price, for example $396,400, which shouts "bargain to be had", should automatically lead to heavy demand, more showings and multiple offers.

Creating Demand

It might seem risky to underprice your home... what if your home is worth $400,000, you list for $375,000, and all offers come in at only $375,000, or lower?

First, that’s then your home’s actual market worth. Two, if you receive offers you don’t like, you can always counteroffer or just decline them.

Almost always, listing your home under value creates a psychological sense of urgency. You want to get as many buyers as possible to visit your home and hopefully they become attached enough to put in an offer. If enough people do this at once, you have created a buyer frenzy and increased your chance for multiple offers which you can play off each other. This scenario almost always results in a final selling price at or above your home's worth.

Use Comps to Postion Your Home Correctly

Your Realtor should have created a comparative market analysis of recently sold homes... but also those currently active, in contract, expired and off-market. What is selling is as important as what is not. here is the rule of thumb... if there are a good number of sold comps your home should be priced within 10 percent of the average home price in your area... and if there are very few or no sold comparables nearby, price your home 10 percent under any currently active or expired listings.

Please call me today if you want to learn more about selling your home in Westchester County...