Tip 1

 

    

The Biggest Blunder Home Sellers Make that Keeps the

 “For Sale” Sign in their Yard Way Too Long. 

When you’re serious about selling your home in a buyer’s market, what’s better than getting your asking price?  

Consider these important points: 

• The supply of homes for sale today is higher than it’s been in fourteen years.

• History teaches that the supply of homes for sale always increases and the number of people wanting to buy them always decreases when interest rates rise and Americans’ pay increases fail to keep up with inflation.

• No thinking person could possibly believe that the Fed will suddenly drop interest rates back to the forty-year lows of the past boom market … or that corporations will suddenly sacrifice their high profit margins benefiting shareholders and top executives in favor of higher employee pay.

• This means it’s safe to assume the buyer’s market will continue for the foreseeable future.

MARKET SMARTS FOR HOME SELLERS  

• But judging from the number of homes remaining on the market for very long periods, it’s apparent most home sellers today just aren’t thinking straight. Nor are they adapting their selling strategy to the changed marketplace.

Why is this? 

Many important decisions weigh heavily on a home seller’s mind:

• The most critical one for getting a home sold is where to set the asking price …

• This decision is also the one most wrought with faulty logic for the current marketplace — as you will see …

Sellers have three choices when setting the asking price for their home:

 

1. Below market value

2. Real, or current, market value

3. Above market value

 

… and the biggest blunder they make is to take a negotiating stance

when making this choice …

They say to themselves, “Well, I know prospective buyers won’t give me a full-price offer, so I’ll price my home above market value and have room to negotiate down.”

 

This SEEMS so logical … but when you dig a little deeper, you realize sellers do themselves a grave disservice with this line of thinking … because that higher price causes agents to exclude the home from those they show. With so many homes to choose from today, agents simply will not waste their clients’ time by showing homes that are overpriced.

In today’s marketplace, if your home is priced more than 

one or two percent over real market value …

… the amount of activity on it will be almost non-existent.

Market statistics show that the homes being sold are the ones priced at or slightly below real market value.

 

So, be market smart …

 

• It makes sense that the successful selling strategy for now is to price your home at real market value. Then, most likely, you’ll take only one or two percent less, just holding firm on your offer.

• This pricing strategy works in the current marketplace because once a potential buyer reaches the point of actually making an offer, he’s already made a decision about your home and is emotionally committed. He wants the house and can see himself living there.

• And although he may be offering less — even 5% less than your asking price — YOU now have the advantage. This is because it’s much easier for you to get him to move his price up to get the home he’s ALREADY mentally bought, than it is for him to start over with the whole decision process.

• Your buyer’s thoughts will run along the lines of “Oh my goodness, I don’t want to have to start the whole process over and go through all this again. I don’t want to do the whole mental analysis again.”

You can see that at this point, it’ll be much easier for you 

 to stay strong, saying“You know, I really priced it right,

 so I’m not going to drop it much.”

Where as, a seller who takes a negotiating stance by pricing his home above market value …

 

• Will have difficulty getting an offer because so few people will see his home …

• Will have to endure months of stress and frustration from not knowing, while his home languishes on the market …

• Will have to make two mortgage payments if he’s already bought another home …

• Will have to tolerate prolonged months of occasional intrusions from strangers poking through his home …

• Will still have to negotiate down, once he finally receives an offer …

• Will end up at — or slightly below — market value, which is where he originally started …

• AND he will have lost all that time, taking from six to eight months to accomplish what could have happened in thirty to sixty days.

So in a buyer’s market, what’s better than finally getting your asking price? It’s getting your asking price in the timeframe you need to move on to the new chapter in your life.