It may seem like every house is selling way over asking, with multiple cash offers, but in reality, that's not the case. It's not even the case for the majority of home sales. In fact, nearly 30% of the homes actively on the market have had price reductions. If your house isn't selling over asking, you may be wondering why. The property may have its imperfections, but so does every property. It may need some renovations and repairs, and it may be a little too close to a school or the main road. While you can make some repairs, you certainly can't move it. So does that doesn't mean it has no value? That seems unlikely. After all, there was once a moment when you yourself chose to buy it. Chances are good that when you chose to buy that specific property, there was a reason. Was it the charming architecture? The beautiful staging? Perhaps it seemed like a great value for that neighborhood. Buyer is looking to make the best deal they can, and sometimes, the most affordable way to buy in a great neighborhood is to buy a place that is either on a busier street or perhaps needs some updating. Perhaps you made a compromise, and now you've been living there so long that you've forgotten about it and learned to love the place. Now you're asking a buyer to make a similar compromise, but all you can see are all the good things about the place, and you can't understand why buyers aren't beating a path to your door.
If that hasn't happened, one reason may be the price. It's so difficult to be objective with the pricing of our own homes. Everywhere we look, we see our family memories, the upgrades we've installed, and the colors and finishes we've painstakingly chosen or argued about. We don't have fresh eyes. We think our home is the best home on the market! To a buyer, your home is just someone else's house. In fact, it's less than a blank slate; it's a slate imprinted with someone else's memories and choices. The worst mistake you can make is to overprice your property. More buyers will pass it over, and it will sit on the market longer, and eventually, buyers will wonder what's wrong with it. Your best way to appeal to buyers is to make them feel your home represents great value. You want them to see your listing and think, "hey, that's a pretty good deal for that house in that neighborhood!" And when you get the pricing just right, more than one buyer will have that feeling.
So how do you get the pricing right? You enlist the help of a great agent, who will help you avoid overpricing, and find that pricing sweet spot. When I work with clients, we approach pricing as a strategy. We study the recently sold and available comparable properties to gauge how much buyers had been willing to pay for similar properties recently, and we examine the qualities buyers have been valuing highly. Then we choose a price that we believe will drive the most activity and produce the most interest. As a seller, you must set aside your personal feelings for your home, and think of it as an asset, focussing on maximizing your return on it. Even though it's difficult to price your home for a lower amount than it's worth to you, it's often the clearest path to those multiple offers you've been hearing so much about and a sale price that might be even higher than you imagined.
