How to Price Your Home Properly
It’s hard to know how much your house is worth. Your property value is dependent on a number of factors, including the features of the home itself, your land, and the neighborhood in which the property is located. But your home is also sentimental, and it’s difficult to evaluate what someone else may pay to call it their own home. A bit of strategy, lots of research, and the help of the right professionals can help you price your home to sell.
Read our top tips for how to price your home properly, from our Seabrook Island Real Estate team.
Get a Free Competitive Market Analysis
Competitive market analysis gives a well-researched picture of your property’s value based on the current market. The value is derived from the asking prices of homes that have recently sold, those currently on the market, homes that were not sold, and other competing properties.
Cumulatively, this data illustrates a complete picture of the current market landscape and where your home falls within it. The analysis can be used to help adjust your asking price, ensuring it’s within a sellable range while maximizing profits. Ask too high, and your property won’t even get showings. Too low, and you do yourself a disservice. A competitive market analysis and the right realtor will help you find the sweet spot between the two.
Get a Free Comparative Market Analysis of your home from one of our experienced Seabrook Island Real Estate agents
Find a Range for Online Searches.
The real estate industry has been increasingly more and more dependent on online and virtual property searches. Making your home visible on these online platforms depends on a combination of strategies, from good photography to the right description and promotion. Where your asking price falls in a viewer’s range of search listings also influences visibility and sales psychology. Price your home with potential buyers’ ranges in mind to maximize your chances of a sale.
When buyers search online, they typically see homes in a range they select by entering a minimum price and a maximum price. Your home may be on the low end of that range, in the middle, or on the high end. Do a bit of research (or let your realtor do it for you) to see where common cutoffs are for comparable homes listed online. For example, a buyer looking in the 350,000-400,000 range may not be shown a listing priced at either 405,000 or 345,000. Price your home to ensure the buyer you want is shown the listing in the first place.
Know the Market: Buyer’s Market v. Seller’s Market.
Buyer’s Market vs. Seller’s Market is the terminology used to describe a simple concept. Buyer’s markets are those in which more people want to sell homes than buy (there is a greater supply than there is demand). A seller’s market refers to the opposite, more people want to buy homes than the available supply allows.
Knowing the market helps you determine how competitively you can price your property. This overarching concept is broader than what you would learn from the comparative analysis alone. The term refers to overall market behavior, and can often be a determinant for homeowners on the fence about whether or not they should list their property. Knowing the market isn’t just important for knowing how much you should price your house for, it can also determine when you should list it.
Be Willing to Negotiate.
Price your home with negotiations in mind. The asking price is truly that: it’s a price you ask for your property, but not necessarily the price at which you are willing to sell. To price your home properly, you must account for the fact that buyers and their agents will try to counteroffer your listed price. This helps you prepare for the process while staying in a range that you and the buyer is willing to move forward with.
Build in a buffer for negotiations when you decide how to price your home. Work with a realtor to determine realistic limits. Keep the market, your own timeline for selling, and your property’s comparative analysis in mind when deciding how much you are willing to give during the process. The right realtor can help price your house properly just above that range to ensure you still sell at a comfortable price.
Price Your Home Properly with Expert Advice.
Rather than basing your home’s worth on how much you bought the house for, or how much your friend’s home sold for, an experienced realtor can help you set realistic expectations for pricing and selling your home. Be sure to choose an agent that knows the local market and the area where you’re selling. When the selling process becomes too overwhelming, the right realtor can be an objective perspective. An experienced realtor backs up the decision on how to price with concrete research, facts, and competitive knowledge.
Pricing your home properly is a difficult decision that should be based on ample research, current markets, and in-depth knowledge of the industry. Start with these tips to pricing your home to gauge your property’s worth, and be sure to ask for help if you need it. Our Seabrook Island Real Estate team is happy to help you price your home properly to make the sale you want.
Get started with your free comparative analysis today!