Effective pricing is probably the most important step in the marketing of your property, and we spend a considerable amount of time researching the right answer.
There are only a couple of factors that will ultimately determine the price at which your property will sell. The most important is the perception of a likely purchaser. Few people allow themselves to pay what they consider is too much for any product. Because of this, we carefully analyze the other property that a potential purchaser is likely to compare us against. How we stack up to our competition goes a long way in whether a purchaser will make an offer…and more importantly it influences what the buyer is ultimately willing to pay.
If the purchaser of your home is utilizing a mortgage, then we additionally have to convince a licensed appraiser of your properties worth. This step has less to do with the competition, and more to do with recent comparable sales (often referred to as “comps”). Recent changes in lending practices limit our opportunities to interact with the appraiser, but use every effort to make sure they’re utilizing the best information about your neighborhood.
Pricing is as much art as science. And no matter what price we settle on, the true value of your property may change many times during the marketing period. The overall goal is to yield you the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of hassle.
Sometimes sellers suggest a price that they would like to “test” on the market for a limited period of time at the beginning of the listing period. It would seem to make sense that there is no harm in trying a higher price just to see if there is some purchaser desperately seeking a property exactly like yours. This is rarely a good idea and let us tell you why.