Aug. 14, 2008 - Pricing strategy to sell your home

I recently met with a seller who wanted to sell his home because of a divorce situation.  He told me that he did not have a problem holding the home on the market for a while because he really wanted the best selling price.  When I asked him to let me know how long he wanted to market his home, he told me three months.  I showed him the comparative market analysis and explained that three months is actually a very quick turn around time since the average in his area was (unfortunately) closer to 300 days. 

I also explained that a house that is overpriced and is left on the market for too long will become less desirable and have a stigmatized of having something wrong with it.  Buyers like to feel that the house they choose is desired by many and sometimes many showings and even multiple offers solidify in a buyer's mind that the subject property IS the right house. 

This property was in a very good condition but had some deterring factors.  For better understanding of my strategy, let's just say the home was worth under $500,000.00.  It was also in a town with very few comparable homes.  I had to do more research, look at more properties, change the criteria I was looking at by changing the square footage and going back to 9 month of data. I included both available properties and sold to come up with the best course of action

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I took into account the few drawbacks that could not easily be changed. There was no garage and cigarette smoke would turn some buyers away. That said, I have looked at the competition. Many of the properties have central air, some are colonials (this is a split). I determined the top price of the home which would be almost within the market value. It is possible that the property will not get a lot of attention at the top price I suggested to the seller. My recommendation is to have 2-3 price adjustments which can occur every two to four weeks at $10,000.00 increments. This way, one is more likely to sell the home at the top of what it is worth and still be able to sell the property in a reasonable amount of time.