How much should I list my house for?

Home is where the heart is, but it can also be where the anxiety and stress is if you're planning on selling anytime soon. 

Selling your home can be an incredibly stressful and emotional time, BUT with the right guidance and support it can (and should) be a smooth, exciting, and hopefully profitable experience. 

Probably the biggest source of anxiety and stress when selling a home is arriving at...and agreeing on...your home's list price.  Below are a number of ideas, thoughts, strategies, and points of view that will leave you best equipped to tackle this seemingly daunting task.  Let's call 'em the Dos and Don'ts of Home Pricing.

DOs

1. Consider your motivation and timeframe
• Do you have a new job that you're moving too?  How about kids starting school? Be at peace with the reality of your unique set of circumstances.  Be realistic with yourself.  Do you have times to 'test' the absolute limits of the market, or are you serious about making your move?
2. Wear 3 sets of glasses

• Consider all of three of these points of view when determining your list price. 
• You HAVE TO think from your buyer's point of view. How do they look for a home?  If you were a buyer...what would attract you? 
• More importantly, you have to think about your buyers' Realtor's point of view.  Your buyers' agent is the one that influences the actual buyer.  Think about it...most parents don't go to the store with the idea of buying Captain Crunch cereal and Sponge Bob Krabby Patties!  But kids influence parents (the buyers) actions. If you influence your buyers' agent, the buyer's will take action.  
• Anyone else?  Oh yea! You have to think about the appraiser's point of view as well! If you've overpriced your house but you're fortunate enough to find a buyer at that inflated price...the appraiser is likely going to pop your bubble, and you'll be back down to reality before you know it, so you might as well start there.
3. Rely on clearly understood "Comps."  
• Comparative Market Analysis, CMA, or "Comps." Use the following criteria to help establish a realistic starting point:
• City, town, or area: Outline your specific development on the map and use homes that are 'model matches' of your particular house.  If you can't do that, start with a half-mile radius from your home. 
• + or - 10 years from the year your home was built
• + or - 10% of the square footage of the home
• + or - 20-30% of the square footage of your lot
• # of bedrooms...until you get to 5, then simply use 4+
• This is a sound starting point. You'll want to find at least 5 properties that are very similar in kind to yours that have closed recently (within the last 90-180 days). If you don't have 5, broaden your search criteria. However, the less refined the search criteria, the less dependable your comp data will be.
4. Look at the median number of days homes are on the market; DOM:
• Look at homes that have been on the market for 90 days or more without selling!  As of the date of this post, the average DOM for local homes is 41 days. If your "Comp" is still on the market after 90...there's a good chance that it's overpriced. You might not weight that comparable home as heavily as another.
5. What time of year will you be selling?
• Ah, spring is here. Spring is considered the best season to sell a home since families are trying to get situated before the start of the next school year; however, fall is a close second since it comes right after the quiet days of summer when most people are away on vacation. Winter is usually the worst season -- especially in areas where it snows -- but also because of the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's holidays when people's minds are on socializing, not buying or selling a home. Note: This can be an excellent time to buy!
6. Look at inventory; the number of homes for sale in your market
• This is right out of ECON 101; Supply & Demand are inversely related.  Simplified...lots of inventory means lower prices, and little inventory means more buyers bidding on each house, driving up prices.  What's your current inventory level? Is that more or less than 3 months ago? Is inventory increasing or decreasing?
7. Consider psychological price caps
• Although these numbers are arbitrary, we live in a society where they actually matter! We don't see a candy bar for sale for a dollar.  It's 99¢.  Billions; probably trillions of dollars have been spent by marketers around the world verifying that yes, we actually DO think that 99¢ is less than $1.  What does this mean for your home's list price? Don't list your home for $512,000.  List it for $499,900.  At $512,000 you'll miss ALL of the buyers who are willing and able to pay that much, but they never saw your house because their arbitrary search criteria was capped at $500,000! On the contrary, if your home is undervalued at $499,900, it will receive multiple offers and likely bid up to or even beyond your estimated value of $512,000.  If that strategy doesn't actually work...guess what...your house wasn't worth $512,000 in the first place.  
8. Look at Current Mortgage Interest rates



Interest rates change buyers' behavior

• Low rates = More Buyers = Higher Demand = Higher Prices
• Stable rates = Current market data becomes even more relevant
• High rates = Fewer Buyers = Lower Demand = Lower Prices
9. Look at expired and cancelled listings
• Almost nobody looks at these numbers, but they tell 'the rest of the story.' This is a look into the recent past.  If a home didn't sell, it's a virtual certainty that it was overpriced.  Keep that in mind when pricing your home. 
10. Look at List Price vs Sold Price
• This adds credibility to your "Comp" data.  It shows recent trends with regard to homes selling above or below their initial asking price.  For example: Over the past 90 days 144 homes sold.  Their combined list price was X and their total sold price is Y. Comparing those two numbers illustrates a trend of overpricing vs. underpricing.  It usually only varies by about 4%, but can really help guide you in terms of direction.
11. Contact a Local Area Expert
• The “art” of choosing the right price for your home comes after you've pulled the data you need to make an educated choice.  Your Realtor's experience & knowledge of your local market is not a logarithm or spreadsheet.  It's expertise.  Chef Ramsay can't tell you exactly how much salt to use, he tastes...and makes a judgement based on decades of experience.  Local experts know intimately the things home sellers probably never even thought about, like...which HOA is having financial troubles or is in litigation? Which side of the street sells for more money; the hill-side, or the golf-course side? Which neighborhoods have excessive special tax assessments or Mello Roos? Did the school boundaries change recently? What is the city doing with that empty lot on the corner? Have you seen that updated FEMA Flood Map? Are there any short-sales or bank owned homes left in your area?  ALL of this knowledge comes from your Realtor's time and commitment; it's knowledge that your iPhone app and your aunt Mable from out of town couldn't possibly know.

DON'Ts

• DON'T look at your Zillow Zestimate as anything but a generalization



Ethically, Zillow notes that Zestimates should not be used for pricing a home.

• Sure, use this figure as your starting point, but don't take it as a fact. These "Zestimates" are admittedly inaccurate.  In fact, Zillow  advertised, to Realtors, a free downloadable PDF file on how to overcome objections to their own data.  These Zestimates are always wrong, but are sometimes HORRIBLY wrong!
• DON'T consider what you paid for your home
• Maybe you still owe $400,000 on a $280,000 house. Maybe you inherited the home and paid nothing! The only thing that matters is the home's value right now.
• Ignore the News; both local & national
• Ignore the News. No matter how "local" the news says it is, it's not local enough to do anything other than create hype or scare the pants off of you.  That's what the News gets paid to do; freak you out.  What's happening within a major metropolitan area is rarely what's happening in your town...much less on your street.  Don't believe the hype; good, bad, or indifferent.
• DON'T put too much weight into what is currently on the market.  
• Sure, those homes might be your competition, but they also could have been on the market and are never going to sell!  I recently saw a listing that had been on the market for 985 days.  How relevant is that?  Remember, what your neighbor 'wants' for his house and your other neighbor 'wants' for hers is no guarantee that either of them will get it. Yes, look at the active market, but more importantly look at what has closed recently (lets call 'recently'...90 days or so).  

Let's review your offers!

I encourage my clients to list at absolutely the most competitive price possible. This creates the highest number of showings. It also creates a bit of a 'feeding frenzy' which plants a seed of urgency within your buyers. Buyers usually have lots of options, and they won't have time to look into all of them. Price is always a motivator for prospective buyers and their Realtors, so let's make the list price an intelligent and competitive one. Consider best-case and worst-case: If the offer you receive is too low, you can accept it or make a counteroffer.  If your price is too high...you'll never get an offer to accept or counter.  That idea alone illustrates the importance of not overpricing your house.

Click Here to read a very recent (current at the time of this post) real world case of exactly how this works:

Having a stale, overpriced house on the market is ineffective, inefficient, and frankly...embarrassing for the sellers and their Realtor.  When your home is priced right...it feels right, and the activity you'll see proves that it is.  THAT is when you know you hit the sweet spot.

Click here if you'd like a FREE, no drama, no spam e-mails, no phone calls Home Valuation (CMA) created for your current home, or for one you're interested in buying!

Thanks in advance for remembering my name when the topic of Real Estate comes up in conversation.  If you're local , just remember Andy@LoisLauer.Com I'm always here to help.  

My business thrives by word of mouth.  If you appreciate the information provided on my blog, please share this post on your favorite social media sites, and with anyone you feel could use my service.

Until next time.

Andy Blasquez  

Cell ~ 909.539.3292
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