Pricing your home to sell

With the changes that have occurred in our market (Northern VA), there are still sellers who are hanging on to what I call improper pricing practices. Your home will not sell because of what you want to net, unless it happens to be in the range that every other house is selling for in your neighborhood. I am amazed at the number of people with property to sell who are basing their list price on nothing other than greed. Your house/property is not an endless supply of cash. It is not a piggy bank that you can pull all of the equity out of, then sell it and VOILA! Your equity is automatically replenished because you still want more out of it. If your equity was spent on the fabulous kitchen you now have...or the boat you have sitting in your driveway...it's gone. Buyer's don't have to pay more just because you are under the belief that you're supposed to walk away from the sale of a home with money in your pocket.

When I come across sellers like this, I walk away. I will try to educate them on how I reached the conclusion of where I would list their house. Instead of heeding my advice, they get mad at me. If I'm going to shell out $1500 for marketing, I want to make sure I'm getting a return on my investment. Having my sign in the yard on a property that won't sell because it's improperly priced makes me look bad and gives the seller false hope that they will actually get what they're asking. I'd rather walk away and have someone mad at me because I didn't take their listing then to have them mad at me because I mislead them. At least with them being upset because I didn't take their listing, there is hope that they'll come around.

If you're thinking about pricing your home above what the market dictates, you should look at your home from the same perspective we all look at the stock market. It's 1995 and tech stocks are cheap and HOT! You buy 1000 shares for almost nothing. They increase, then split. You don't sell. They increase and split again. You still don't sell. This goes on for the next two years. You have more stocks than you know what to do with, and they are still HOT! You wake up one morning and turn on the news. To your dismay, tech stocks are dropping. You don't panic like everyone else seems to be doing...you give it a month, the company will rebound. Over the entire month you waited, the stocks plummet. You call your broker...select the scenario which is most likely to happen:

a) Hey Joe, I want to sell those Acme-tech stocks. I know they're only selling for $3 per share now, but in late 1996 they selling for $195 per share. That is the price I want to sell them for. Make it happen buddy!

b) Hey Joe, I want to sell those Acme-tech stocks. WHAT!!! They're only worth $3 per share? No way dude! I paid more than that for mine!! Darn, I guess I missed the boat.

To properly price your home, you need to base it on comparable homes that have SOLD recently....not comparable homes that have currently LISTED. Your home will sell for what buyers are willing to pay. And "Make an offer" in the remarks does not work if your home isn't priced right.