In a favorable real estate market, it’s common for potential sellers to fall victim to the notion that they can do no wrong, thinking home pricing mistakes can’t happen. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth! That’s why home pricing with local market knowledge is one of our New Rules of Real Estate. It’s that important for success.
Avoid these classic mistakes to ensure you attain the highest possible value for your home, in the shortest amount of time.
Taking a ‘Zestimate’ as gospel.
Estimates from sites like Zillow are just that—estimates! To determine a logical listing price, it takes a trained professional. That’s because a trained professional takes into account things that a simple estimate database can’t like daily or weekly market conditions and intimate neighborhood knowledge. Finding an agent with focused experience in your community—and taking his or her research, experience, and insight to heart—is the best way to go about things.
Overpricing your home right from the start.
Sure, it certainly seems logical to up the asking price of a property in anticipation of negotiations. The problem with this logic however is that it often backfires, and when it does, you’ll be forced to lower the price of your home, thus painting it in a needlessly unfavorable light.
Overpricing can lead to your house sitting on the market untouched and is much more dangerous than underpricing. Likewise …
Pricing for the future.
Home values in your neighborhood might well be on the rise, but you’d be wise to resist the urge to jack up the listing price because of it. This is merely another way to overprice your home and, ultimately, wind up in a position that forces you to lower the listing price.
If you price your home based on current sales and the present state of the market, you will have more interested buyers and a better chance of competitive offers.
Choosing the agent who offers the highest listing price.
Don’t choose the agent because they offer the highest listing price—choose the agent who offers the most compelling strategy for selling your home. What an agent says they can do versus what they actually do are often two very different things, and if a listing price sounds too good to be true, there’s a good chance that it is.
When meeting with potential listing agents, pay close attention to their marketing and selling strategy. If they can explain it to you in a way that makes sense and logically yields results, that’s someone you want on your team. If they talk big numbers but don’t have a concrete business plan to back it up, be wary.
Letting emotion cloud your judgment.
Particularly when it comes to selling a property, this one’s often easier said than done. But it’s critical to bear in mind that, at the end of the day, selling real estate is business, and the decisions you make during this process will impact your life in more ways than one. First Team agents use competitive market analysis and our own tool Market Trends to provide you with the facts you need to set the right price, right away. Because you need the facts, not wishful thinking.
For help avoiding these common home pricing mistakes, talk with a First Team agent. You can search for a professional in your area or reach out and we’ll match you with a top listing agent based on your neighborhood.
