Setting The Right Asking Price For Your Home
By Sameer S Panjwani
ChoiceOfHomes.com
Many homes
remain unsold for a long time because they’re over-priced.
Pricing your home right is essential if you want to sell your
home in quick time. Expecting more for your home than the rates
that prevail in the market will only delay the sale of your home,
unless your home has something more to offer than other homes.
When it comes to pricing your home for sale, you need to consider
that your home is going to be competing with other similarly priced
homes in your area and unless there’s a short supply of
homes for sale, you’re going to have to set a competitive
price.
All that said,
some homes do sell for more as do some homes for less. It all
comes down to how you set your asking price, how you go about
negotiating and what are your costs involved in the selling process.
Here, we’ll discuss how you can determine a fair asking
price for your home in prevailing market conditions.
Real
estate agents – Whether you intend on using the
services of an agent to sell your home or not, they will call
you to offer their services so you may as well get them to provide
you with some information. Agents will usually offer to give you
a free “Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)” of homes
recently sold and presently on sale in your neighborhood. This
data should be useful in helping you set a reasonable asking price,
keeping the features of your home in mind and how it compares
with the others.
Internet Listings
– Browsing internet home listings will give you a fair idea
of how much homes are priced in your neighborhood and how much
you can sell it for. There are plenty of ‘by owner’
sites (e.g. ChoiceOfHomes.com,
ForSaleByOwner.com)
with many internet listings and there is also realtor.com which
offers MLS listings.
Driving
by the neighborhood – Surveying the area yourself
and visiting homes presently on sale will give you a good idea
of how much you can quote for your home.
Home Appraisal – Getting a real estate appraiser
to put a value on your home, based on its condition and recent
home sales in your neighborhood, should give you a fair price
range in which you can sell your home. The appraisal can also
be used to help justify your price when negotiating with buyers.
(Get a free
home appraisal done here.)
So set your
price after investigating two or more sources, so that you can
justify for the price you set. Your home will sell fast as long
as there’s a reasonable amount of demand for homes in your
neighborhood and you don’t overprice your home when compared
to other homes in your area.
Best of luck
with the selling of your home!