Priced To Sell

November 20, 2008

In today’s volatile market, buyers expect to get a great deal when then purchase a home. It’s almost as if they want to be rewarded for being brave and credit worthy. So how do you price your home so that it’s competitive enough to get buyers looking at it, but high enough to allow the negotiating room buyers need so they can assure themselves they purchased the home at a discount?

A while back I showed a home that had been reduced for a quick sale. It was a great deal. The buyer I was working with loved the house and made an offer (90% of list price) on the home. The offer was rejected. When I asked if the buyer would have been happy with the purchase price if the home had originally been listed higher and he’d offered the current list price. The buyer admitted that buying the home at a discount was more important than finding the right house at the right price. He absolutely could not pay full list price for the home, even though the list price was below comparable homes.

It’s difficult for sellers to understand that some of the appreciation they’ve experienced over the last few years has been wiped out. But if a seller has owned for more than about 8 years, he still should have built up enough equity to be able to price well, leave a little room for negotiation and walk away from the table with some profit. Compare profits to what your stock portfolio or retirement is worth, and sellers in most parts of the country are still OK. Yes, there are areas in the country where sellers are upside down in their mortgages, but how many of these sellers have owned for more than 8 years?

So if you’re a seller with enough equity to negotiate, do so with grace and gratitude. Hopefully, you’ll get just a good a deal when you go to buy your next home!

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The Laveen area was settled by farmers and dairymen in the 1870s. Despite its proximity to Phoenix, Laveen was isolated by the continuously-running Salt River. Up until 1911, when the Salt River Project built the Roosevelt Dam upstream, Central Avenue was the only bridged crossing of the Salt. Because of its isolation, early Laveen became relatively self-sufficient, boasting a country store, barber shop, repair garage, pool hall, and even a women's club building.[3] After the dam was built, the family of the area's first postmaster, Walter E. Laveen, donated land for a school, which was built in 1913. Later, in about 1918, the area was named for Walter Laveen. In the 1980s, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) proposed building part of the Loop 202 freeway through a portion of Laveen. ADOT later shelved these plans due to funding problems. However, plans for this freeway are back on track and the freeway is planned to pass through most of Laveen at about 59th Avenue.[4 -- Source: Wikipedia.com

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