Home Solutions San Diego Blog

When you’re getting ready to sell your home, if you want a quick and easy transaction you have to decide on the right price. With a price that is unrealistically high, a house can stay on the market for a lengthy period and that is deadly. Unless you have the rare luxury of being able to wait a long time to sell after you decide you want to, it makes more sense to drop down a little in order to get a buyer quickly. This is especially true, of course, if you are committed to buying another place.

Get a Reliable Analysis to Start the Process

If you want to have a successful sale the thing to keep in mind is to be the very best deal around. If you are working with a Realtor, he or she will be able to provide a market analysis so you will know what prices other homes like yours have brought. Setting a realistic price is definitely an asset a Realtor can contribute to get the process started in the right direction.

Sell It or Hang on to It?

Consider the process of buying an item for your home. You would probably not spend too much time in deciding between an item you could buy in your neighborhood and one that costs less but had to be brought in from far away. Your time has a value as does the money you have to spend on your house while it is being sold. Taking these factors into account puts the subject into a different light. If you are selling when there is a down market, you may end up having to not only drop your asking price after it goes up for sale, but also offer other concessions such as unwanted schedule extensions in order to obtain a quick sale.

The Market Really Decides Your Timing — Use It

If it happens that after seriously looking at the case for not going for the maximum possible price you are still stuck on getting the highest possible amount, you have to wait until you can get that best possible price; in other words, you have to give appropriate credence to market conditions. Now might not be the best time to be selling, so you may have to give some on the “Sell it quickly” theme — but even so, when the market moves, you might have to go with little notice. This could mean selling your home before you have another, and unless you have relatives or friends with whom you can stay afterwards, you will be defeating your purpose in gaining extra money on the sale by having to move into temporary housing until you find another place. In some cases, the buyer might wait to take possession, especially if they want to stay where they are a little longer. But in most cases, once the buyers know the new loan has been approved they will want to close within a week or two.

About Those Repairs…

Another thing some sellers fail to take into consideration when pricing their home is whether their home is in the same condition as others that sold for a good price. If you have not maintained your home in top condition, you are not going to be able to sell it at the same favorable price as the other homes even if they are very similar. You can, however, price it to move even in a less than optimum condition by lowering your price to offset any work the buyer will have to do. Serious work such as a crack in the foundation, a roof that leaks, and heating and cooling systems may not be handled like this, although you can get away with it for problems that only affect the appearance of the home. Jobs such as renewing the landscaping, tidying up old gutters, and new paint can sometimes be overlooked in exchange for a price reduction as long as it is clear to the buyers they will be taking on some work in exchange for that great competitive price break you’re giving them. The main point is that if you consider both your valuable time and having the house sit losing luster too long with the “For Sale” sign up, the smartest thing to do is to do the smart thing by pricing right from day one. Price it right if you want to sell it.

There are buyers out there who go out of their way to look for such an opportunity, and if your home fits in this category you must be especially open-minded in your price setting to make it work out the way you want. In any case, though, the way to come out ahead in selling your home is by pricing it right from the very start.

This article was made available by Automated Homefinder, your Longmont real estate experts in Colorado.

Real estate photo credit: Allan Ferguson