Pricing Your Home For Sale In A Rising Market

As of May 2013 the real estate market in Parker, Colorado and Douglas County is on fire. Prices are climbing and homes are selling but there is still confusion about pricing your home for sale in a rising market. The market is rising and the sellers have most of the bargaining power but I still see confusion and completely incorrect pricing on homes in many neighborhoods. When I say incorrect pricing I mean not priced high enough. Also read: Home Sellers Leaving Money On The Table

“Remember this: Know your price limits in advance,  set goals ahead of the frenzy and know your out. Remember the saying pigs get fatter and hogs get slaughtered.”

Here is the answer for those who will not read the entire article. If your house is clean, well maintained, zero or little deferred maintenance and updated then you should be priced well above the highest sale price in your neighborhood for a similar size and style of home.

Find out your home’s value here. This is as close to an appraisal as you can get without paying $400.

Pricing your home for sale in a rising market.

It’s simple really. Know the real value of your property. Know what it is worth now and what it will be worth in 30 days. A solid Realtor will tell you this. In some cases I’m seeing sellers that could have easily sold their homes for $30,000 to $50,000 more than what they took. This is crazy. If you are still in doubt then spend $400 and order and independent appraisal. I’d say a $400 appraisal is totally worth every penny if it could let you know your were just about to under price your home by $30,000. Call me I will give you some names of appraisers. Steven Beam 303-941-4663.

• Capitalize on the Sellers Market that we are now in.
• Choose a Realtor that has been in business through the last market boom so they can guide you through a pricing strategy that works in this market.
• It’s OK to price your home higher than the last sale in the neighborhood.
• It’s OK if your house doesn’t sell in 2 hours the first day it’s on the market.
• It’s OK to put the house in the MLS on Wednesday (with professionally shot cool photos of course) and not allow showings until Saturday morning. This will create anticipation and a HUGE demand will be at it’s pinnacle at 8AM Saturday morning when there are 20 home buyers lined up down your street to see the house.
• The above doesn’t work unless the house is in good condition in a nice location and the photos have to be amazing and professionally shot. Your Realtor shooting the photos generally doesn’t work. I know two Realtors in the Denver Metro that I would let shoot their own virtual tour photos and they honestly are not as good as a person that does this for a living.
• Some sellers get so greedy they run the risk of pricing the house too high.  Hey, that is perfectly OK and generally fine because it is a lot easier to lower the price after a week on the market than it is to raise the price. In this case you know you soaked every inch of profit from the sale of the house and that is why you hired me in the first place right?
• Don’t listen to your neighbors.  They lie. Seriously, they really, really do. I just had a conversation where a woman told me her neighbor told her she sold her house for $425,000 and was the highest sale in the neighborhood in 5 years. Yes the house was listed for $425,000 but after the appraisal came in low and the price was adjusted down the actual sale price was $395,000.
• Seek out and get good advice and you will do well.

Home prices rising.

Appraisals in a rising real estate market can create problems.

You need to have a Realtor that knows home values not just in your immediate neighborhood but all around your area. This is important because as we all want top dollar there really is a fine art to knowing when enough is enough. The really good brokers know what your house is really worth and what they will appraise for on the high side. They know that even though you have 8 offers over asking price and one is $25,000 over asking price there is a limit to what the house will appraise for. Having a house not appraise is a sure fire way to blow up a deal. Buyers get nervous, lenders get nervous and the Buyer’s agent gets really nervous.

Remember this: Know your limits in advance,  set goals ahead of the frenzy and know your out. Remember the saying pigs get fatter and hogs get slaughtered.

Steven Beam is a professional Realtor living and working in Douglas County Colorado.