Selling Your Crescent City Home - Part 1 - Proper Pricing

Proper pricing, how important is it? In the current Crescent City real estate market, it's everything.

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last year or so, you are highly aware that the Crescent City real estate market is a buyer's market. There are a plethora (oversupply) of listings for sale versus the supply of ready, willing and able buyer's.

What that means for you the seller is that you have a lot of competition in selling your home. The number one factor in getting your home sold in this current buyer's market is to price your home below the mid range of the competing listings (or lower if the home is in worse condition than most of the competing listings). Foreclosed listings are coming onto the market at the bottom of their price range and getting snapped up, so in order to compete, you have to price accordingly. If you don't have the stomach for this and plenty of seller's don't, you more than likely will not sell in a timely manner.

Your full-time real estate agent should be a huge help in this regard. A full-time real estate agent who sells a lot of volume does so because they work hard, KNOW THEIR MARKET, and have competitively priced listings. A good agent is worth their weight in gold in this market, so choose wisely.

Statistics show that homes that sell in the first few weeks, sell for more than if they languish on the market for many months and if you think about it, that just makes sense. Why? Anything, whether it be a movie, a new brand of clothing or new listing has a "newness excitement factor" attached to it that doesn't last long. If the item proves to be genuinely excitining, like a really good movie, then large crowds attend for many weeks and people go see the movie more than once (think of Star Wars when it first came out). However, if the first wave of lookers spread, through word of mouth, that the movie is a dud...well, that's usually the end of it and it gets sent to the DVD rental store.

Same thing with a house for sale. It comes on the market--especially in a small market like Crescent City-- and it gets a flurry of showings. This is the time when a home has the greatest chance of getting competing offers and therefore higher offers. The old adage that, "Your first offer is usually your best" is so true most of the time. The longer a home is on the market, the more shop worn or stigmatized it becomes. I know you don't want to give your house away but remember, a home is worth what a buyer is willing to pay IN THE CURRENT MARKET, not what a buyer would have paid in 2005. I know that's painful, but unfortunately it's a fact.

What if, by chance, you do price high and a buyer that just has to have your home offers full price? You better read Part 2, because having an accepted offer is not the end of the story, it is only the beginning.

If you would like to talk to an experienced, full-time agent regarding selling your Crescent City home, give me a call and I would be happy to do a free market analysis for you using up-to-the-minute market data. Please subscribe to my monthly market report for an indepth look at the Crescent City/Del Norte County real estate market and how it affects you.

Don't miss:

Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 2 - Negotiating an Offer
Selling your Crescent City Home - Part 3 - You're in Escrow