How Best To Sell Your Home
Know Your Local History
What your home’s listing price should be largely depends on what similar homes, or “comps,” recently sold for in your area. To price your home, your agent will run the average sales prices of at least three comps to assess your home’s value.
What constitutes a comp? A number of factors, including a home’s: Age, Location, Square footage, Number of bedrooms and bathrooms.
Agents will look into the difference between each comp’s listing price, and the price it sold for. He or she will consider price reductions and why they happened, if relevant. All the while, your agent will also rely on inside knowledge of housing stock and the local market. That nuanced understanding is invaluable, particularly when measuring the unique aspects of your home with raw data about comps.
When selecting comps, agents generally look for properties that sold within a one-mile radius of your home, and in the past 90 days. They find these homes using the multiple listing service (MLS), a regional database of homes that agents pay dues to access.
Understand the Market You’re In
The housing market where you live can greatly impact your pricing strategy.
If you’re in a seller’s market, where demand from buyers outpaces the number of homes for sale, you may be able to price your home slightly higher than market value.
But if you’re in a buyer’s market, where buyers have the advantage, you may have to price your home slightly below market value to get people interested.
You can understand the market, and how much your home is really worth by contacting Ronald Graham of Renovator Realty for your free, no obligation market evaluation.
Put Your Feelings Aside
The Fallacy of Testing the Market
If you overprice to test the waters. . . well, don’t. The wrong price will delay your sale, and some agents say the fresh factor wanes after 30 days.
As previously mentioned, many sellers think theirhome is worth more than it is.Why? Because of memories. Because of sentiment. Because of pride.
But you have to stay objective when assessing your home’s value. Buyers, after all, won’t know your home’s personal history. What makes your home special to you may not be something that entices them.
Read: They may want to convert that craft room you worked so hard to perfect into a man cave.
The lesson: As much as possible, set aside your emotional attachment to your home. It will make it easier to accept a realistic, clear-eyed calculation of its price.
Have a Heart-to-Heart With Your Partner
Not the sole decision maker in your household? Talk to your partner about your home’s price before it’s listed. You can use this free market evaluation as a guide for that discussion.
The reason isn’t just to foster the kind of open communication that’s important to any relationship. It’s that if you’re not on the same page about price or the other things that are important to you about sale, each subsequent step of the selling process will be impacted by that tension.
Keep Your Head in the Game
You’ve considered Renovator Realty’s advice, and the two of you have agreed on the right price for your home. Congratulations! Your house is on the market.
Remember even after the listing date, price should be an ongoing discussion between you and Ronald Graham. Markets are fluid, so it’s possible that you’ll have to make tweaks.
In any case, it’s important to to stay in continuous dialogue with Renovator Realty & Ronald Graham. Together you will achieve the highest results possible!