Bob Brennaman- Charleston, SC Real Estate and New Homes in Mt. Pleasant, SC

GUIDELINES FOR PRICING

YOUR HOME TO SELL

Believe it or not many home owners cheat themselves when selling their home.

They don’t cheat themselves because they price their homes too low, they cheat themselves by pricing their homes too high and eventually get less money for their homes than if they had priced their home correctly from the beginning.

This special report will provide you with the key elements to consider when pricing your home for sale.

The single most important starting point to consider when pricing your home for sale is to answer this question: How long do you want your home to be on the market for sale?

This must be the starting point for every decision you make regarding pricing your home. There is a price where your home will sell within a week or two. There is a price that will get it sold in 90 days and another price that it will sell in 6 months.

After you have determined your timing in getting your property sold then you need to consider some of the following things.

A Realtor is the better choice to help you price your home than an appraiser. An appraiser’s primary job is to validate for a lender that a home is worth a minimum of a certain amount for a loan rather than interpreting the current market conditions and other active listings of property currently for sale. Appraisers don’t advise you on what to ask for your home but compare your home to other homes that have already sold.

When pricing your home you must consider the housing market from the standpoint of supply and demand. When there are lots of homes on the market for sale competing with your home you need to price your home more competitively (which means lower) than if the local market has a shortage of listings and homes are selling in several days with possibly more than one buyer making an offer on the same home.

Ask your Realtor to do a CMA for you. A CMA is a competitive market analysis. This CMA will show you homes that did not sell…called expired listings; show you homes that have sold and those homes that are currently on the market for sale. When you review this information you will better be able to see how to position your home, price wise, in order to get your home sold in a time frame that matches your personal goals and objectives.

When you look at the CMA pay particular attention to two things. Look at how long the home was on the market for sale plus look at the ratio of list price to sale price. You will probably find that the homes that sold the fastest were also sold closer to their asking price, plus sold for more money than the homes that were on the market longer.

Price your home correctly from the beginning and you will sell it not only faster, but also for more money!

An important point to remember when you are looking at both homes is that location means everything. If you take an identical house and place it in different locations, different parts of town, or different neighborhoods or communities, the value will change dramatically. Every neighborhood has its own range of value. To a buyer the neighborhood a home is located is more important than the size or improvements. Location is everything in determining a homes value and price.

There are no amounts of ads…open houses or brochures that will get your home sold when it’s not priced correctly. Don’t ask your Realtor to spend more money or time promoting your home for sale…Lower the price.

Many times a homeowner believes their home won’t sell or sell quickly because of the economy or market conditions. This is never true. Any home can sell quickly in any market condition if the homeowner prices the property correctly for the market. You may not like the price but there is a price that will allow your home to sell quickly.

If your home isn’t selling, it’s not the economy. It’s the price!

Many homeowners believe that they should price their home a little high to build in some negotiating room. This is incorrect. Price your home correctly from the beginning based on the market conditions and how quickly you want your home to sell. When you over price your home the local Realtors may not even show it. Remember the listing agents job is not to sell your home but to get it sold. The best way to get your home sold is to price it correctly from the beginning so that all of the local Realtors are excited about it from the beginning and want to show their clients your property.

When a home is priced too high the local Realtors in the multiple listing service (MLS) may not even show your home or if they do they are doing so just to make another home they are showing look good.

The most critical time to have a home priced correctly is the first 30 days. If you miss out on the first 30 days by having your home priced too high you can not ever recapture the excitement of a new listing that comes on the market priced correctly. Even if you reduce the price after it is on the market for a while you have forever lost the attention of the local Realtors.

Today most buyers are being shown homes by an agent that is formally representing them by way of a written agreement. Because the Realtor showing the home is likely to be representing the buyer, the Realtor is only selecting those homes to show that the Realtor believes are priced correctly.

The value of your home is not determined by what you paid for it…What you owe on it…What you want for it…How much cash you need to buy your new home…What your friend says it’s worth…What an appraiser says it’s worth…or even what another Realtor says it’s worth.

Buyers and buyers only determine value.

Price your home to sell in the time frame you need to allow you to meet your personal selling goals.

I’d be happy to look at your home and provide for you a no cost and no obligation CMA.

I look forward to hearing from you via email or phone