How to Price Your Home to Sell
Selling
On the home sale journey, the part where you price your home to sell might be the hardest.
After all, if you’re like most people, you’re probably attached to your home in more ways than one. Sentimental memories, the time and effort you spent fixing it up or decorating, and the simple fact that your life was in this space makes it hard to see it objectively.
How do you price your home when nostalgia and possessiveness get in the way? In short, you need to detach yourself from the situation and think practically. You have to consider it as it really is – property.
The Keys to Pricing Your Home
When you need to price your home to sell, you need to forget about what you paid, do your research, and leave some room on the table for negotiation.
1. Forget What You Originally Paid
When you’re selling your home, you’ll be better off if you forget the price you originally paid.
Why? Market values fluctuate too much, and are based on too many outside factors, for the price you paid to have any weight on what it will be now.
The housing market now is probably wildly different than it was when you first took out a mortgage. You can’t look at the past to gauge what the right move should be in the present.
2. Use Every Tool to Help Gauge the Price
Every tool you have at your disposal will help you figure out the right price for your home to sell. These include your realtor, comparable listings (your “comps), and even online tools like automated valuation models (AVMs), which compare your home to others using a complex algorithm.
Most of all, remember that if your realtor gives you a suggested price for your listing, you shouldn’t just accept it face-value. Check that number yourself (with the aforementioned tools) and see if it does make sense.
3. Leave Some Room for Negotiation
Most buyers will expect to negotiate when they’re ready to put in an offer on a house. Leave room for this tendency in your asking price.
You don’t have to go with the absolute lowest price you’re willing to accept. Round up. For instance, if you ideally want $250,000 for your home, list it at $255,000. This way, when a buyer comes back with a lower offer, it’s actually what you wanted all along.
Things Could Get Tricky When You Price Your Home to Sell
Pricing your home for a quick sale isn’t easy. You have to take lots of factors into account, do your research, and think with a bit of strategy. Work closely with your realtor, factor in those upgrades you invested in, but leave some room for buyers to negotiate. Your home will sell well if you take the time to price it right.
