Seller Pricing Guide

Seller Pricing Guidelines

While often quoted by sellers, these items do not affect the value of your home:

What you paid

What you want

The cash you need

A refinance appraisal

What Zillow says

What another agent says*

*Please note: There will always be plenty of agents willing to overprice your property in order to get the listing. After all, the best advertising a Realtor can hope for is their sign in your front yard!

The buyer always, always, ALWAYS determines market value.

Your home is only worth what a ready, willing, and able buyer will pay for it. Today's buyers are more educated than ever. Most buyers will have recently looked at 10 or more properties before viewing yours. They may have viewed dozens (if not hundreds) of properties online as well. The buyers decide if it is priced fairly, or if it is overpriced.

It is in your best interest to price correctly.

When your home is new to the market, an interested buyer will feel like he or she won a treasure hunt. They found the home before everyone else did!

In a situation like this, the buyer isn't worried about getting to your bottom dollar. They are more worried about getting the home under contract and off the market before the whole world finds out it is for sale! Therefore, buyers are more likely to pay top dollar when your home is still fairly new to the market.

However, a buyer may love the home just as much, but will have the exact opposite reaction if they are told it has been for sale for a long time. They will experience self-doubt and think, "What did the other buyers see that I missed? I better take a large deduction off the price just in case there's something wrong that I missed."

You only have two choices. You can price your home to SELL or you can price your home to SIT on the market.

Many sellers overprice their home, and need to do at least one price reduction before selling. Don't wait too long to reposition your asking price if the market is saying "No thank you" to your price! Is your home priced "in the market" or "out of the market"?

Here are some final thoughts to keep in mind:

Sellers may have special memories tied to the home (birthdays, holidays, etc.) The buyer has no special memories tied to your home.
The buyer may have different decorating tastes than you do.
In the buyer's mind, your property is a box with a certain amount of square footage. That box has many of the same features a lot of other properties do.

Bottom line: Is your home the best value at the current asking price?