What I Tell My Buyers About Your Poorly Priced Home!

Most sellers hire an agent to sell their home, and a result, most of the time get their homes listed in the local MLS (Multiple Listing Service). The MLS is the clearing house for most for-sale homes, is accessed by local agents and used extensively by buyer agents looking for homes for their buyers. Being in the local MLS is crucial to getting the widest exposure to buyers and their agents.

As a an agent looking for homes for my buyers, I share a host of clues, insights and details with buyers that can help them make good decisions. But most sellers (and their agents) have no idea what clues their listings provide to smart buyers and buyer agents. Part of that is because many listing agents don't work by choice with buyers, and partly because they are not aligning themselves with their clients needs and position.

Here is what pricing tells me, and what I pass on to my clients:

1) Your price starts too high: I assume that your agent is clueless, lazy or weak. My buyers and I know very quickly which homes are completely, absurdly priced based on the local market.

New to-the-business agents or agents working out of their area of specialty often don't know what the local trends are, and as we know, all real estate is local.

Agents who don't put the time in to do the market analysis, math and legwork to create accurate, market-based pricing recommendations are often poor negotiators. That's good for me and my buyers!

Weak agents who take listings with seller-mandated pricing in hopes that it will sell--at some point--or are too scared to turn a listing down due to unrealistic expectations often mean weak negotiators, desperate enough for a sale to talk their sellers into taking my buyer's low-ball offer.

2) You lower the price dramatically, right away: We assume that you were just 'testing the waters' and more than likely, my buyers have moved on to something else. Almost no one overpays for a commodity and if you're not serious about selling, how serious will you be about negotiating and completing the deal?

3) You lower the price a tiny bit-a bunch of times: When I show my buyers the pricing history of houses like this that are on the market, we all assume that another price cut is on the way. And if a buyer is on the fence, this is the best way to keep them there! Most buyers will not leap to make an offer, but just keep waiting for that next price reduction...and then next. Especially when the last 10 have occurred every 4 weeks, to the day. Why not keep waiting?

4) Your price NEVER drops: If you've been on the market for more than 60 days, and you don't drop your price and you haven't had any offers, we assume that you are just fishing, and aren't really interested in selling. Market-priced homes get attention, get offers, and go under contract quickly in ANY market conditions.

5) You get offers, but your home goes back on the market over and over: I can see when your home was under contract from a buyer and then went back on the market. When I ask my buyers to speculate why, they are all under the same assumption: something went wrong with the inspection. This will often keep my buyers away from these homes, under the premise, false or not, that the home has problems.

When your home is on the market, there are a host of things that your pricing patterns tell other agents and potential buyers. Some of them may be accurate, some may not be, but your owe it to yourself and your agent to use great judgment, market data and excellent area-insight to price right starting day one!

Happy Selling!