Perhaps the most important aspect of selling a house is making sure it’s priced correctly right from the start. But putting a price tag on a home full of memories, dreams, and hopes is naturally easier said than done.
It’s easy for the emotional aspect of selling your beloved home to cloud your judgment and cause you to make pricing mistakes. Price too high, and you might lose the freshness of the property’s appeal after two weeks of unproductive showings. Price too low, and you could sabotage your chances of making the amount of money you deserve.
If you’re not sure how to price your home effectively, here are a few strategies to help guide you.
Forget the Price You Paid for the Home
While the belief that homes appreciate in value tends to be true, this is not always the case. Try not to cling to the dollar value you have in mind that’s based on what you originally paid for the home plus a little extra. At the end of the day, it’s the market that decides if your home’s value increases or decreases. If you want to get a realistic price on your home, have it appraised based on current marketing conditions.
Turn to Pricing Tools
Perhaps the best way to get a general estimate of your home’s selling price is to look at the prices of other similarly-sized homes in your neighborhood. Realtors and agents call these “comps” or comparables.
For example, if a house along the same street as yours, with the same number of rooms and baths and same square footage, sold for $245,000, it’s very likely your home will be in that price range.
Many real estate websites offer free automated valuation models (AVMs), which are essentially searchable databases with home values based on comps in your location. Although far from being 100% accurate, AVMs are a good starting point for identifying your home’s price.
Leave Room for Negotiations
All buyers want to walk away from a transaction knowing they saved quite a bit of money. So, instead of pricing your home at the absolutely lowest price you’re willing to sell it for, add a bit of wiggle room for haggling. Even a “savings” of $5,000 can get people excited enough to agree to your asking price.
So, if you want to sell your home for no less than $246,000, you can round it up to $250,000 and offer to bring it down to its “last” price. Alternatively, you can offer to take care of closing costs in exchange for a higher asking price—buyers are wired to love freebies, after all.
If you have a home or property you need to sell right away and don’t have the luxury of using these pricing strategies, you can sell it as is to Blue Hen Homebuyers and still get a modest return. Blue Hen buys all kinds of homes, regardless of their age or condition. Call our offices today at 910-802-2222 to learn more about how we can help you.