You’re facing many challenges with the pending sale of your house. You may not have realized that pricing your home for sale could be among your most challenging tasks. The harsh reality is that if you price your home incorrectly, your pending sale could be a catastrophic failure. On the flip side, if you price the house right from day one, you can experience a transaction that’s financially rewarding in minimal time with as little stress as possible. When you price your home too high, your property not only doesn’t sell right away but can face extended stays on the market. The longer the house is on the market for sale, the more price drops occur. The lengthy stay on the market and many reductions in asking price could create a stigma around the property, a bad reputation that the house is, for one reason or another, unsellable. Here’s what you need to know about how to price your home for sale.
Memories and Money | The Oil and Water of Real Estate
Whether you’ve been in your home three years or 30, you’ve made memories. You’ve hosted celebrations and special events. Loved ones have accomplished milestones; there have been laughter and tears. Your memories are priceless, your sentiment is of the highest value, but you cannot charge home buyers for the experiences you’ve had during your tenure in the property. Detach yourself from the emotional value of the property.
The same is true regarding the price you paid when you initially bought the house you are now striving to sell. Real estate market values are flexible. Fluid. The real estate market shifts, bends, sways, wobbles, tilts and flexes. You cannot expect that because your house was worth a specific amount three years ago, that it’ll be worth that much and more now, especially if you’ve upgraded the property during your ownership. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Separate yourself from what you paid and focus, instead, on what the current real estate market will support.
Free Online Home Valuation Calculators
The internet is an amazing resource for gathering information – even better, free information! Technology makes it possible for you to go to a variety of websites, type in a bit of info about where you live, and then a few second later will provide you with an idea of what your home might be worth. Key words: might be. But there are a lot of voids in those calculations. The estimate is based strictly on unverified and potentially outdated data; there is no human factor. Go ahead and start with a home valuation calculation, but don’t stop there.
Listing Appraisals | Paying for a Professional Opinion
A listing appraisal, or a pre-appraisal, is a professional opinion garnered by a professional real estate appraiser who is trained and specializes in property values. The appraiser gathers information from public records about property lines and boundaries, lot size, square footage, and other data. Next, having reviewed the data, the appraiser physically examines and assesses the property to determine its condition, how well the house has weathered, neighborhood conditions, etc. In fact, the appraiser fills in many of the blanks the home valuation calculator left behind.
The disadvantages to listing appraisals are that they do cost upwards of $500, they cannot be used later in the transaction, and won’t hold up as marketing material when showing the home. In other words, you’re paying for your satisfaction.
Your Real Estate Agent’s Expert Opinion
Real estate agents have developed insights only possible by working in the field. Agents know their neighborhoods, they are expert in their territories, and they know what adds or subtracts value to a home. Real estate agents can also advise on home improvements, staging, and ways you can increase the value of your house, which supports a stronger asking price.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, you cannot pluck a desirable number out of the clear blue sky as a sales price for your house. Nor can you calculate your investment plus a return, and you also cannot base your home’s worth on the memories you made in it. Instead, there’s a strategic method, an art and a science, to determining your home’s fair market value in today’s real estate climate.
Your real estate agent is the best source of information about the local community and real estate topics. Give The Robinson Realty Group a call today at 423-468-1111 to learn more about local areas, discuss selling a house, or tour available homes for sale.