Pricing Your Home
I always describe the marketability of a given home in terms of a triangle. The base of the triangle is the home's location. There is nothing you can do to alter the fundamentals of the location. If you are on a busy road or on a steep lot or near a power line, it is very unlikely that these fundamentals will change. The other two sides of the triangle are price and condition and these factors are very much subject to change. When all sides of the triangle are equal or in balance, then I consider your home an A+ home.
A+ homes sell quickly and close to full price. If your home does not receive an offer quickly, then we need to reevaluate pricing and condition. An A+ home does not need to be a showplace to be rated A+. It only needs to be priced appropriately for its condition and location. It is easy to turn a less than ideal home into an A+ home by either changing the price or improving the condition. There is a market for every home, but the important thing is to find the correct balance of location, price and condition. The balancing act is to find a price that will attract buyers without selling your home too low.
The tendency of most sellers is to build in a negotiating cushion on the assumption that every buyer is going to make a lower offer. If you overprice your home, it is very likely that some potential buyers will never see your home. If you price it close to its true value those same buyers will rush to see it and make a high, quick offer to avoid losing it. Generally these homes will sell much more quickly and at a higher price than those with a big built in cushion.
The important thing to realize about pricing is that it is most fundamentally affected by the comparable sales of similar homes in your area. It is most definitely not based upon how much you have spent on your home while you lived there. Another aspect that must be looked at objectively is your own personal motivation to sell your home. If you have already found a home to buy and you must sell your present home first, then your motivation is obviously higher than it would be if you only planned to search for a home after your present home is sold. Likewise, if you have been transferred and the "buyout" by your company is lower than you want to accept, then it is in your long term best interest to price your home so that it will sell quickly.
One of the facts a Home Seller must accept is that ultimately the marketplace determines what their home is worth. Analysis of comparable sales and evaluation of improvements is an excellent predictor of the eventual selling price, but it is the Buyer that actually determines the value of a given home.
