That thinking may have worked years ago, but in today’s real estate environment, homebuyers have a tremendous amount of information at their fingertips with just a few clicks. Today’s buyers know prices, and if you list a house or condo for sale in London, Ontario, at a price that's too high, it could cost you!
Price a London Ontario House high, accept less? I always hear this from home sellers: “Let us list it high because someone will offer us less.”
When a home seller interviews a Realtor, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of choosing a sale price. If a seller can get more money for the home, it means more financial opportunities for them. Unfortunately, uninformed sellers often choose the Realtor who tells them they will list it at the highest price or, worse, the lowest commission. These are the worst mistakes home sellers can make.
Establishing Value:
It doesn’t matter how much a home seller thinks their home is worth. The only people whose opinions matter are the buyer who will make an offer and, of course, the appraiser. Pricing a house is part science and part art. It involves comparing houses in similar London neighbourhoods, adjusting for differences between them, tracking market movements, and measuring housing inventory to help determine a range of values.
This is the same method appraisers use to evaluate a house. No two appraisals are identical; however, they are generally close. There is no hard-and-fast way to set a price for a home in London, Ontario, and the surrounding area.
Is the Price Too Low?
Houses sell at a price both the buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to accept. If a house is priced too low, the seller should expect multiple offers and can use them to drive the price to market value. There is little risk in pricing a home below its actual value, and your competition. The danger is pricing a house or a condo too high and having the home sit on the market for weeks, even months.
How It Starts To Go Wrong
The home seller did not interview more than one Realtor. They may have picked the first Realtor off the Internet because they offered a meagre commission, or a friend or co-worker recommended them. The first Realtor priced their house at $795,000. After 90 days of sitting on the market, the listing expired.
It Continues To Go Wrong
The following Realtor they hire lists the house for $775,000. A few weeks later, the price drops to $765,000, but there are still no offers. A few people look at the house, but no serious buyers come forward.
The Home Owner is Now Tired & Exhausted
The home seller and the Realtor then priced the home at $737,000, and it sold very quickly. The sad part is that the comparable sales in the neighbourhood fully justified a price of $755,000, but the home had been on the market for too long at the wrong price, and now the market had slowed.
Protect Yourself
The question is: how much does an expired or old listing cost the homeowner? The financial losses often exceed the extra mortgage payments made and the cost and hassle of keeping a home spotless during the listing period. It affects the value a buyer ultimately pays because it is no longer a “fresh” listing. It’s now stale and dated, an overpriced home for too long.
Don’t let it happen to you. Don’t let it go to a stale listing.
“To sum up in two words all failures in war and life. Too late!” Douglas MacArthur
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