How to get your house sold for top dollar
As a seller, you might be thinking about pricing your house on the high end while so many of today’s buyers are searching harder than ever to find a home to purchase. You’re thinking, higher price, greater profit, right? But here’s the thing – a high price tag does not mean you’re going to cash in big on the sale. It’s more likely to discourage buyers and have them looking at the houses your neighbors are selling instead.
Even today, when the advantage tips toward sellers because there are so few houses for sale, your house is more likely to sit on the market longer or require a price drop that can send buyers running in the other direction if it isn’t priced just right.
Importance of Days on Market
The temptation for many sellers is to overprice their home and make decreases in price as time on the market increases. Many sellers believe they must have “negotiating room“. Or, they often want to “test the market”. Unfortunately, thees strategies usually backfire. Sellers don’t realize the list price is too high until much later, after you lose valuable time on the market. This chart shows a basic truth about the number of showings as the Days on Market increases:
The majority of showings on a home for sale occur in the first 7 to 14 days of the listing.
After that initial buzz, the number of views drops significantly.
After a price reduction, seller’s will often see another, smaller bump in traffic. The problem with this strategy is that as time on market accrues, even with a price reduction, the home is in danger of becoming what we call, stigmatized.
Remember, buyers are looking at several homes in the same price range, comparing features to similarly priced homes. When they see a listing that has been on the market for a longer time than the rest of the homes they’ve seen, they naturally question why. “What’s wrong with this house that it hasn’t sold yet?” All of this data is available to buyers, and a good buyer’s agent is explaining the data to their buyers.
You can see that the first 14 days is very important to attract the right buyer to the home.
Conclusion
Price Correctly, the First Time – The longer your home sits on the market, the less you’ll get for it. As your home is collecting more “days on market,” your monthly costs stay the same. So, unless you have the luxury of time and you don’t mind paying the holding costs of mortgage payments, utilities, insurance and property taxes, you will need to price your home competitively to increase the number of showings, which get your home sold for top dollar.
