Selling Your Home – The Right Way

1. Smart Pricing

Pricing is the single most important part of the marketing of your home. Nobody will argue this point. But the asking price is a balancing act. Uderprice it, and you leave money on the table; giving away your hard won equity.

But if you overprice it, you won’t sell. It’s that simple. Of course, it’s worse… if you over price the home and waste the buyers, you’ll probably have to drop it even lower just to get a sale. So overpricing runs the real risk of costing you money too.

Yuck. Pricing your home is the least fun part of this entire process for everyone. But it’s still the most important part of the process.

So how do you ensure that you get the most for your home, while still keeping it salable? That’s the trick that we’ll help you to sort out. Below are some of our pricing strategies to help you get the most for your home, but still get it sold.

2. “ABSORPTION RATE” PRICING

“Know the market to Know YOUR Chances “

So most pricing approaches, used by 99% of the agents and 100% of appraisers, consider your home when picking a value for the property. But it doesn’t end there.

We do what all the other agents do. We look at the home, the property, the upgrades, and the condition of all of these. But we look past the home.

We examine the market conditions. Not just for the whole city, but for your specific part of the city and even right down to your own neighborhood. We want to know how it’s performing. This will affect both the asking price of your home, and how we approach the marketing of the home.

Some areas are hot, some are not. It’s that simple. I’ve looked at areas of Edmonton that are selling 4 or 5 times faster than the average. But across the street, in another neighborhood, homes are stagnant on the market and nothing has sold in 3 months.

Why does that happen? I have no idea. But I do know how to deal with it, and how to get your home sold in either neighborhood.

By looking at the market activity, and knowing who’s selling and who’s not, we can better position you for not only a faster sale but make it far more likely that your home will actually sell.

Still not convinced? Call me (John Carle) at (780) 701-1904 and ask me to work through the specific numbers for your neighborhood. I’ll tell you how many months of onventory are sitting on the market, how quickly hoems are being absorbed by the buyers, and share with you tricks to getting a home sold in YOUR neighborhood, based on these numbers. Then you’ll see just how powerful this approach can be for you.

While I prefer phone calls, I also take email requests.

3. The 30 Day Rule

“If it’s Broke… Fix It”

The biggest mistake that we make, as Realtors, is to leave things alone. We get scared to talk to our clients about the tough subjects. Nobody likes to hear that they’re over priced, or that their house smells bad, or that little Muffy is costing them thousands of dollars in the sale.

But somebody has to tell them, and that job falls to us. it is easily the least fun conversations that I have with our clients. I don’t enjoy it any more than you do.

In studying the market and neighborhoods as thoroughly as I do, I’ve discovered an interesting trend. About 25% of all listings sell in the first 30 days. For the next 30 days, about half that many sell. This “half-life” effect continues through the life of the listing.

So if your home doesn’t sell in the first 30 days, our odds of getting the home sold become smaller and smaller every day. As your agent, it’s my job to advise you on how we can counteract this effect.

Adjusting the price is the most common approach to regaining momentum. Price can fix anything. If your home is trapped between 2 freeways, a big enough price drop will get it sold to someone. Carpets are gross? A price drop will fix it.

But it isn’t always price. Sometimes fixing the problem will net you more. Take those carpets for instance. Maybe it makes moer sense to replace them for $5,000 than it would be to drop the price by $10,000.

Maybe getting Muffy out of the house for a few weeks will help us to get it sold, rather than dropping the price by $10,000.

At 30 days, if we haven’t seen an offer… then it’s time to start talking about the “maybe’s” or the price. If we don’t then we’re in trouble…

4. Don’t Be Stupid

“Don’t let 1 part of the process trap you for 3 months”

I remember attending a seminar on “Getting More Listings in Any Market” put on by a very slick fast-talker. There were about 300 Realtors from across the province in attendance. Many of them my own competitors.

The basis of the seminar was fairly simple; “Start the home super high so that you’re the agent they hire, then beat them down on price reductions every week… but at least you’re the one with the listing.”

A lot of people in the room took his advice to heart. From a selfish point of view, it makes sense. Get more listings, and if they don’t sell… hammer down the prices until they do. There’s just a few problems for me in that system.

First. You are relying on our advice to price your home. As Realtors, we know that the longer a home stays on the market, the lower the eventual sale price. So if we don’t price it right to begin, you’re the one who’s losing thousands.

Second. It’s dishonest. I don’t like starting a relationship with deceipt. Not in life, not in business. Not ever.

So I won’t do it. I’ll tell you the truth, even if it’s not what you want to hear. We can discuss it. I’ve been wrong before. If you think my price suggestion is incorrect, tell me why. But I won’t over (or under) price your home just to get you to sign a listing contract. That’s just not me.

If you insist on over pricing your home to the point that I don’t think it will sell, then I will allow you to hire a different agent to represent you. No hard feelings.

Just don’t fall prey to some other agent’s “bait and switch” of dropping from their super high price right away. Hold them accountable for their pricing suggestions.