Setting a sale price for your home is more than just intuition about what you think is going on in the market. You need in-depth research and the experience of someone who knows your neighborhood and how to extract the best value from the current market.
It’s human nature to assume that your home will sell for more than the one down the road, but it can be an expensive mistake. If you price too high, you’ll scare off potential buyers and this can keep you on the market for an extended period.
Finding a price that will meet the market and deliver you the best return is a mixture of art and science.
The science comes from assessing the price expectations for homes currently for sale in our neighborhood and those achieved by similar properties over the past six months. Within this framework, we can usually find a benchmark.
The art is where my experience as an agent comes in. I’m trained to understand the market dynamics and can advise you on how we will promote the facets of your home that we know will excite potential buyers.
Here are some tips to confidently setting an asking price:
- Undertake research by looking at online portals at properties similar to yours to start to understand the price range of homes with your style and features.
- Beware of the algorithm-driven tools on websites that spit out a price. They can be wildly inaccurate and do not necessarily represent the specific value of your home. They can be helpful but remember they are only a generalisation.
- Let me provide a current market analysis. I’ll examine properties in your immediate neighborhood to see what prices have been set as well as examining past sales. This will give you a reasonable benchmark.
- Talk to me about the prices that have been achieved in the past six months for homes similar to yours.
- Follow up with any agent who’s put a mailer in your letterbox claiming recent sales. Grill them on the difference between the original asking price and what the owner finally settled for. Don’t be shocked if there is a difference between the two.
- Consider asking a valuer to give you an independent price estimate. This will give you an even stronger sense of the level you might achieve.
- Let’s do a walk through together. I’ll examine your home in terms of the strengths of your property, what buyers are currently looking for and how this all rolls up in terms of setting an attractive price.
- Be careful of thinking: “I won’t take a cent less than …” Why? Because your home will only sell for what the market will pay for it. Your own personal expectations and desires won’t actually influence the value equation. If after all this research, the expected price of your home is not near your target, you may need to wait until the market is stronger before you sell.