I will not talk about curb appeal, paint, staging, etc..because that is given that you have to keep your house in tip-top shape to sell, there is a very important critical point that hold your house from selling.
DO NOT OVERPRICE YOUR HOUSE!!
DO NOT OVERPRICE YOUR HOUSE!!
DO NOT OVERPRICE YOUR HOUSE!!
You can paint the whole house with beautiful neutral color, upgrade the kitchen's counter tops, cabinets, new carpet or hardwood floors and spend a lot of money, BUT if the price is too high, it will not sell. Would you pay $40,000 for a car that is selling everywhere for $25,000?
I will share with you just one example from real life, not just bunch of yada yada :)
A seller had his house in a great shape, regular maintenance, has upgrades which is perfect and was listed for $205,000. Similar homes in the same subdivision were listed in the 180s. Can you look at it from the buyer's point of view just by looking at the houses info on the MLS. Oh! both are 3 bedrooms 2 baths, hmmm same square footage and all of them been more than 5 months on the market. Buyers will pass on your house and will not see it. That is reason ONE not to overprice.
Reason TWO, still about the same house in the example above, the last house sold in the neighborhood for the same size was appraised for $172,000 (No wonder all of them been on the market for more than 5 months). Do you know what does that mean that it's been appraised for that amount??
Let's look at the buyer' side again and his mortgage:
Assuming the buyer will pay 10% down payment.
The Bank will lend him 90% of the lesser of the appraised price or the contract price: which means in this case that the bank will lend the buyer 90% of the $172,000 not the $205,000 because the bank said that is the real value of the house. Do you think the buyer will pay an extra $30,000?
After they had their house listed for 7 months with very few showings and no offers, they listed the house with me, we got offers in less than 2 months and it was sold in 70 days!! Yay :)
We can't blame the market being bad or that there are no buyers in this economy or the realtor didn't market the house right. There was more than 53000 single family homes (not including townhomes & condos) sold in the Houston Area in 2011 and around 46000 sold in the first 9 months of 2012. These are big strong numbers!!
Feel free to contact me any time for your home market analysis or any other questions you have
| Jimmy Farag, REALTOR Realm Real Estate Professionals Phone: (832) 303-5000 Cell: (832) 744-7424 Fax: (281) 598-5402 |
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