Pricing Your Home For Sale
According to statistics, the greatest probability of selling your home occurs during the initial few weeks it is listed. It is important to price your property correctly. The majority of prospective buyers begin searching for homes online, and they can see how much other houses in the area are selling for. This will allow you to move quicker, helping to cut down on your marketing time.
1) Price Positioning. A well-planned, multi-step pricing strategy should already be in place if your house does not get enough attention during the first few weeks. You will be able to move more quickly, which will reduce your market time, if you have a pricing plan in place in advance.
A list price should be set based on the fact that internet search engines default to listing prices in $25,000 increments. This means that people will be searching for homes listed for $200,000, $225,000, $250,000, and $275,000, among other sums.
Each time you make a price change and it happens to fall into that $25k increment you will then target an entire new pool of buyers who were not seeing your property when it was initially listed.
An example would be that you were listed at $204,900 and you make a price drop to $200,000. A buyer looking in the $175-$200k range will now find your listing online (as well as someone looking in the $200-$225k range). If you were to reduce your price to $199,900 vs 200k, you may be missing out on a pool of buyers.
2) Overpricing your home. When you first list your house, everything is on your shoulders. You have a new listing that everyone wants.
Many homeowners misestimate how much their house is really worth. It's because they have a stronger emotional connection to their home. As much as I dislike to say it, your family memories won't add value to your home.
The bottom line is, if your home is priced too high, it will sit on the market for a longer time. After many days with little or no activity, home buyers will gain the advantage. Home buyers will feel that you will be more willing to negotiate the price and other issues because your home has been on the market for so long.