Pricing your home is the key to success!!!

The most important step in selling your property is to establish the correct sales price for your home.

Go to a real estate office and pick up a homes guide. Look at the houses that are currently on the market. Find houses that match your house as close as possible and determine your asking price based on these homes. Also, find the actual selling price of similar homes that have recently sold in your area. This information is available for public viewing at your local county courthouse. Now that you have an idea of value, hire a real estate appraiser. The cost of a third party professional opinion is money well spent, as it is an accurate assessment of the market value of your home and excludes the emotion and wishful thinking of the homeseller. Also, the appraisal can be a valuable marketing tool when buyers begin to question the sales price on the home. Buyers are aware; they’ve been looking at other homes and generally know what a property is worth. Buyers will not make an offer on an overpriced home. An appraisal takes the guesswork out of it for everyone.

Overpricing means you will spend time, money and effort and get nothing for it... except discouraged. It’s a given that your home will sit there, unsold, all because you didn’t establish a fair market price. Don’t forget that selling your own home gives you a tremendous pricing advantage. One of the signs you have overpriced is if you do not receive many calls for showings. You could very easily lose a buyer to someone else if you are overpriced. You will have to make the painful decision after your house fails to get an offer within a reasonable amount of time to lower your asking price by a much larger amount than necessary if you had priced in correctly in the beginning.

More than likely the homes the appraiser used as comparables, and even the ones you’ve investigated, probably involved the costs of a real estate agent. In other words, even though a house sold for $200,000, the home seller netted $10,000 to $14,000 less because real estate commissions were paid. You can now price your appraised $200,000 home for $195,000, and probably sell it faster. More importantly, you'll walk away from the closing with more money because of the competitive price.