Is the Market Telling You Something About Your Asking Price?
by Jill Heineck, Associate Broker
Heineck & Company @ Keller Williams Realty Peachtree Road
The “for sale” sign is up, but showings have been few and far between. Offers – if any – have been disappointing. “Hang in there,” you tell yourself. “It’s just a matter of time until the right buyer comes along.”
Patience is often a virtue, but not in this case. In the metro Atlanta area, when a home is priced correctly, it can go under contract in as little as a week. According to the National Association of Realtors®, if a home doesn’t get any showings – or gets showings but no offers – in the first 7 to 10 days, the asking price is too high.
“But the Zestimate says…”
Tools like Zillow’s Zestimate can give you a general idea of what’s going on in the housing market, but they are not designed to determine an asking price. For one, there’s a lot of variability in the data they use to generate estimates. Plus, none of the estimates you get are based on specific information about your home.
It’s similar to medical information: There’s a wealth of it on the Web, but you don’t make important decisions based on it. Instead, you rely on a medical expert to help you interpret and understand how it relates to your personal health situation.
As the seller’s agent, and the market expert, it’s my responsibility to share and discuss the facts specific to the seller’s market. As the seller, it may not be what you want to hear, but it is my duty to give you all the information needed for minimizing time on the market and maximizing the selling price.
The right asking price is always in line with the current market.
To sell your home, obviously you must attract potential buyers. But pricing just 10 percent above the current market shrinks the pool of house hunters who look at your property by 50 percent. In other words, half of potential buyers never put you on their must-see list.
How do they know a house is overpriced? They could be working with an agent and doing the same homework my clients and I are doing. Or, they might be doing research on their own and seeing what other homes have sold for. And it gets worse the longer an overpriced house is on the market. It sends the message that the seller is unwilling to negotiate. Now, think like a buyer: Would any of this draw you to the property?
It’s critical to work with a Realtor who is a local market economist.
The key to maximizing your sale is to respond quickly to the feedback you’re getting from the market, namely that buyers aren’t interested. A savvy listing agent will know what needs to be done in order to get reasonable offers coming in. It might be a price reduction you wish you didn’t have to make, but it’s one I’d recommend precisely because it’s in your best interest. After all, the longer a house sits on the market, the greater the negative impact on the seller’s bottom line.