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Wednesday, January 8, 2003 Price is key to selling a home fast and for top dollar "After selling homes for over 24 years, I have found that without a doubt, price is the key to selling your home fast and for top dollar," said Gary Marshall, broker at Assist 2 Sell Buyer and Seller Realty Center. Pricing your home incorrectly is the number one marketing mistake that most home sellers make. You don't want to over price your home and scare the buyer away, yet you don't want to under price your home and leave money on the table either. Half the battle of marketing your home is over when it's priced correctly in the first place. So, how can you determine the value of your home? One way is to have a professional appraisal done by a licensed appraiser. That gives you some credibility when you get ready to sell. You can show a potential homebuyer that you didn't just pull the list price out of the air. You had a professional appraisal done and you can give the buyer a copy of the appraisal. A full home appraisal costs approximately $300. Another way to figure out the value of your property is to have a real estate agent do a competitive market analysis (CMA) for you. The CMA will show properties in your neighborhood or area currently active on the market (your competition), expired listings (homes that did not sell) and properties that have sold in the last six to twelve months. From this information you should be able to determine a realistic value for your home. Here's a startling statistic from the multiple listing service. Approximately 62 percent of the home sellers in Fayette County that wanted to sell their home last year were successful. That sounds pretty good, but the flip side of that is 38 percent were unsuccessful. That means over 1,000 home sellers in Fayette County wanted to sell their home last year and couldn't do it. They were unsuccessful. So, to cut straight to the chase, the main reason why these homes didn't sell is because they were over priced. Now, some people might say that the reason some of the homes didn't sell was because maybe they were in a bad location or in bad condition. Yes, but if they were priced low enough, someone would still have bought them. Price is king! I have heard so many home sellers say either "we'll ask a little higher price for awhile and come down later" or "we can always come down but we can't go up." This is a terrible mistake, especially in our current soft real estate market! It is critical to price your home correctly when you first put your home on the market. Nationally, approximately 40 percent of all the homes that do sell actually sell in the first 30 days. Besides, after your home is on the market for months it becomes market warn and buyers may wonder ... what's wrong with this house? Why hasn't it sold? So, price your home right from the beginning. I have also found that you can't fool the buyer. What I mean by that is by the time a buyer gets ready to make an offer, they are educated buyers. They may have already looked at 10 to 15 homes or more so they know if your home is priced competitively or not. Price your home correctly and you'll get more prospects through your home. And, it's a percentage game. The more people that see your home the better chance it has of selling. And, here's a rough rule of thumb. If 10 to 12 people view your home and you don't get an offer, then something's wrong. Yes, it's probably your price. If 10 to 12 people look at your home and they all go buy another home that they thought in their mind was a better value, what does that tell you? You don't want buyer prospects walking in your front door and going out the back door and buying the house down the street that's more competitively priced. What if you are not getting any showings while your house is on the market? If your property is not being advertised and marketed properly, and no one knows your house is for sale that could cause a lack of showings. But, if your home is being heavily advertised and marketed and given the exposure and there still is a lack of activity, then the market is a not accepting your price. No amount of marketing and advertising will sell an over priced listing. As a matter of fact, more advertising of an over-priced home just lets more people know the home is over priced. Realtors want you to get as much for your home as the market will bear. The key is to not overprice your home. Gary Marshall has written a much more in depth 24-page Pricing booklet called "Price, the key to selling your home fast and for top dollar." This booklet is full of strategies, charts and illustrations. "It's what you don't know that could cost you thousands when you get ready to sell," says Gary Marshall. Gary is making the Pricing booklet available to the public free of charge. Simply call Assist 2 Sell at 770-487-9195 and they'll get the Pricing booklet right out to you.
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