Price your home correctly for a quick sale
Sitting with a home that simply won't sell because it's overpriced can cause a lot of frustration. But how do you market your home for what it is really worth?
Homes that languish on the market for an extended period of time generally earn a bad rep, mainly because buyers think there is something horribly wrong with the property. And more often than not, when they eventually do sell, it’s for a lower price than it should have been listed at in the first place.
Grant Gavin, from RE/MAX, said there are five factors that need to be considered when putting a home on the market. The location, accommodation, condition, price and how motivated the seller is will all help to determine how much the property will eventually fetch.
“Of the five factors mentioned, there are two that the seller can actually influence. These are the condition of the property and the price. However, the most powerful factor is the motivation for selling.
“While most people believe that estate agents are responsible for setting the price of a home, this is not entirely true. The agent will arrive at this sum by taking into account comparable homes for sale in the area, recently sold properties, and the current market conditions. However, it is ultimately the homeowner who will make the final decision on what price tag they want to attach to their home.”
Also read: What you need to know about insuring an unoccupied property
Unfortunately, for those with little motivation to sell, emotion can quite often overcome logic and professional opinions based on fact and statistics. The effect of this is that the homeowner puts themselves at risk of not achieving their primary objective – getting the best possible price in the shortest possible time.
People who are motivated to sell because they absolutely have to move generally pay more attention to what the market is telling them. This, coupled with hard statistics, will enable them to price the home correctly.
“One of the most important groups of people in this whole process is the pool of buyers currently looking for a home,” saids Gavin.
“With the information available on the Internet, buyers have access to property listings on company websites, market statistics and data from the major property portals. They also consistently view the properties on the market during their house hunting process.”
How much is my home worth?
• Get professional advice. Find the best estate agent in your area. The top producing estate agents in any area understand their markets, and more importantly, they know how to compare your home to others currently for sale.
• Don’t be tempted to add on 20 per cent for “negotiation”. You will be surprised at how setting the right price can actually stimulate demand and competition amongst buyers. If you set the price correctly, you will see the activity in terms of the number of viewings in the first few weeks. This is because the best buyers are actively looking around the market already.
• Don’t be concerned about an immediate result. If you were diligent in following steps one and two, then trust the advice you have been given. Most homeowners worry that if they get an offer too quickly, it must mean that their price was too low. This is not always the case and is more likely to mean that he was probably spot-on with his pricing.
• Information courtesy of Private Property.
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