Price for location. Price for Style of home. Price for amenities. Price for defects. Basically you must be hard nosed on your cma and come to your conclusions on price without the sellers influence. Then you and the seller must review the cma and reach the same conclusion. Do you know your market area statistics and buyer demographics. Who would be the buyer for the home and how can you find them? What type of property is selling around your listing..single family, condo, attached, low-end, mid range, upper end, anything?
If the home is being shown how does it stack up to the competition? Size, style, smell and visual appeal? The house needs to be very clean, in good condition and free from major defects. If you want to get several offers on a property at market value, just saying its priced right isn’t enough. The home needs to stand out as the clear quality leader in the neighborhood. Putting your home on the market is like entering a beauty contest. It may be a professional stager can help you win.
There seems to be a trend that if the house is vacant, staging is very important to motivate buyers to write offers nowadays.
If they aren’t looking, maybe your photos are the cause. People shop on-line nowadays. Many times they decide what they will look at based on what they see on the internet. If your photos are not great, you won’t get the traffic you need in order to get more than one offer Taking quality photographs of your beautifully staged home will also attract attention and motivate buyers to take a closer look. It used to be people didn’t know about a busy street until they were at the property and sellers hoped to bowl them over the wonderful interior so they would overlook the street noise. Today all listing have mapping and aerial shots. They see the neighborhood and property on the map. I hear buyers and agents say all the time, I knew “something” had to be wrong for the house to be priced so low in that neighborhood. The key is to price it so attractive that buyers are willing to overlook some noise if everything else works for them.
Landscaping is important too. A new front yard that looks like a carpet might cost $800 to install, but green grass and some color in the beds or in baskets will provoke a strong response from buyers. I have seen this happen on a couple of listings recently. Freshly trimmed shrubs , clean walkway and driveway can make a difference.
What about that home where it’s got deferred maintenance and the seller isn’t interested or can’t put money into it to sell. Yes, you can get multiple offers on beat up houses too… by offering them at prices that are attractive to investors. Keep in mind whatever you think it will cost to do an improvement or repair, the buyer is going to add at least another 15% to that number if they have to be the one to do it. Real estate investors are always looking for properties that have good profit potential, and when a home is offered for sale at a wholesale price, the investors will flock to the property and get an auction going. The key is figuring out what a properties wholesale cost is.
Sometimes bank owned (REO properties) are priced at below market values, and the offers come pouring in. I wrote an offer for a client on a 4-plex last year, and it was a de facto auction situation. We wrote an above asking price offer, but another party offered way above asking price. The bank was able to move the property quickly at market value for investors.
This was a Win/Win for everyone.
Broachs's Blog 