How do you know you’re setting the right price when you list your home for sale in the Iowa City area? This is a concern for all sellers when they put their homes on the market. It’s little wonder that the question “Can we list at a higher price and test the market for 30 days?” is such a popular question.
What’s the harm you ask? Why is listing at a higher price a bad idea? It might not help, but it won’t hurt. You’re not in a rush to sell so why not give it a shot? This is exactly the point where the Internet has changed everything. Listing at a higher price might have worked when buyers weren’t looking for homes months or even years before buying one. In the “good old days” Mr & Mrs Buyer’s only source for homes was open houses and the newspaper. They needed to be committed to buying a house before they actually moved along in the process. They might not know your house was on the market those first 30 days. These days they are browsing homes on-line long before they have a concrete plan. They will know exactly how long your house has been on the market. And take it from me, it doesn’t matter if you do lower your price after 30 days. The buyer will lower it again, simply because of the fact that it’s been on the market “so long.”
Statistics show that homes sell at or near asking price in the first 30 days. This is not “Realtor Speak”, that’s just the way it is. If you over price your home in the first 30 days you will need to make at least two price adjustments after 30 days. The first is to get it to the price it should have been to start, the second to account for the 30 days it spend languishing on the market. If you’re very unlucky you will chase the market and need to make several more price adjustments before the house sells. That’s just because buyer perception is that the longer it is on the market the lower the price needs to be.
Internet savvy buyers and their buyers agents have changed the dynamic in selling real estate – Setting the right price before you list your home in the Iowa City area has never been more important than it is now. That said, I can understand that it’s hard to rely on guidance from a Realtor when you might have just met them. That’s why it’s probably a good idea to talk to more than one agent. Keep in mind though that listing with an agent who agrees with everything you say might not be the best plan. As it happens most of the time sellers want to list their homes at a higher price than Realtors. This is just a fact of life. Sellers calculate the value of their home with a different set of criteria than Realtors. They’re looking at what they paid for the house and what they’ve put into it. The Realtor is not looking at either of those things. For a Realtor selling a house is a bit like selling stock on the stock market. One day prices are up, the next they are down. The housing market isn’t that extreme, but it works pretty much the same way. Realtors look at what similar homes are selling for – Today. Nothing more, nothing less.
The moral of this story is that choosing the right Realtor is every bit as important as setting the right price when you sell your home in the Iowa City area – And with the right Realtor the odds are very good that setting the price won’t be too hard and you’ll know it’s right from the start!
Setting the right price upfront is critical to getting a home sold early and is one of the great reasons to hire a Realtor who has their pulse on the local real estate market. Excellent information Denise.