The Kiss of Death When Selling Your Home!

Listing ABOVE market value, and expecting to lower the price if it doesn't sell quickly. This is a very risky strategy that could cost you tens of thousands of dollars, especially now where days on market is rising and inventory is piling up.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. When it comes to selling a house, the most important decision is where to position the home in the marketplace, so that we get it in front of the right Buyer who would be willing to pay a Seller an amount they find acceptable, or more.

We do this by attracting all those Buyers in waiting, and the way we do that is with an a very competitive price, coupled with an attractive listing.

The biggest mistake is to start high and think we can drop it later! Testing the market is a terrible idea!

Why is that?

Well, when a home comes onto the MLS, all the Buyers who are set up by their agents on Realm will get a notification if your home falls into their selected price range. The worst thing that could happen is if these "Buyers in waiting" see your listing and click away. If the price is to high, they might not want to book a showing, or, your home will become the comparison property that helps sells your competitors homes!

We want to create the right atmosphere where Buyers feel they need to move quickly on the property. Competitive pricing, just slightly below the competition, and in the correct price bracket, makes the home the obvious choice.

The first two weeks on the market are our best chance to get active Buyers to book a showing and make an offer on our property. If we fumble the first two weeks, we lose all those active Buyers, and then, by the time we make a price adjustment weeks later, we've lost momentum and will end up chasing the market down.

Fun fact: No matter how many times your agent resets the clock on the MLS listing, any Buyers agent will be able to see the listing history on the MLS and inform their Buyer of the CDOM, which totals the cumulative days on market, including any relists.

Now, not only is your DOM tally rising, Buyers may assume that the Seller will be getting desperate and would accept a lower offer, or worse, that there may be something wrong with the home. Buyers are very smart these days, and with our currently amount of inventory, they have a lot of properties to choose from.

Instead of pricing high, you want to look at the average DOM for your area, and price AGAINST your competition. Remember, make your property the obvious choice to a potential Buyer. By looking at recent solds, you can get a good idea of what Buyers are currently willing to offer for a home like yours, and remember, the Listing Agent and Seller are on a team! The Agents job is to get Buyers to pay top dollar for your home, but the Sellers job is to make a decision about where the home ends up in the marketplace.

Who ultimately decides what a home sells for??? The Buyer!! Yes, the seller has to accept the offer, but the home is going to sell for a price based on an agreement between a Buyer and a Seller, so by understanding the current market, we can execute an effective pricing strategy to position the home where it will actually get sold!!!