Successfully Selling Your Home

Why Proper Price is Critical

The market – NOTHING ELSE – determines market value. Your home is worth what a reasonable well informed buyer is willing and able to pay for it at a certain moment in time. Consider this:

Homes priced correctly have a 95% chance of selling; 5% over market a 50% chance of selling; 10% over market a 30% chance of selling; 15% over market a 20% chance of selling. Did your home fall into this trap?

In any market – including strong “seller’s” markets – the price of your home will have a significant impact on the activity it receives. In the current Atlanta real estate market, it’s critical that your home be accurately priced. Most agents will perform some type of comparative market analysis (CMA). Often this will be a short review of activity in the neighborhood. While that’s good, buyers in this market have greatly expanded their search area and your home will be competing in a much larger pool of homes, often into other counties.

As an experienced appraiser, I take a different approach. I prepare a “Reasonable Expectations” (see it) report for your home. This is a significant market analysis of your home, well beyond the level of an appraisal. While not on the appraisal form, this report will give you a very good idea of how a competent buyer’s agent and appraiser will view your home. Data for your home will be presented for your review; you will easily follow my logic and suggestions.

So what can you expect if you price your home higher than the market indicates? Often the answer is “nothing” – no legitimate traffic or offers. Consider this:

  • Your home is “new” to the market one time. That’s the time buyer agents will see it as a new listing. Within a few minutes, they will evaluate it based on price, info posted and apparent condition. If it’s out of line or poorly represented, it’s gone.
  • Unrepresented buyers searching the web will also be able to “comp” your home. Many sites provide basic valuation calculators that can broadly offer price ranges. While not reliable, these will show at least basic info and they make influence a buyer to pass on your home.
  • Note as well that many agents are very specific when a buyer says “Search between 125K and 150K”. If your home belongs at 145K and is listed at 160K, that’s a lost opportunity. Same for many generic real estate sites; if you’re not accurate you will lose genuinely interested buyers.

I find it much better to price accurately, get traffic, and negotiate closely. When you get an offer you know that some emotional connection has been made by the buyer. They have been to your home a few times, can see themselves in it…it’s my job to get them there. There’s no rule that says you have to give your home away, transfer a ton of personal property, pay all closing costs….EVERYTHING is negotiable. But – you have to have something to negotiate! This idea of leaving room to “negotiate” fails for this reason; unless you’re priced accurately there is nothing to negotiate! Once we get an offer, then I'll evaluate things and we'll crunch numbers - SEE IT HERE  and  SEE IT HERE

As your overpriced home sits, you will have to begin reducing price to encourage visits. Agents and buyers are most interested when the listing is new and accurately priced. A track record of price reductions can signal that a seller getting desperate and that leads to “low ball” offers.

The longer your home sits, the more questions are raised. Is there something wrong with it…hidden defects…external issues…difficult sellers…? Pricing is one of the three critical issues that must be accurate.