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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Local Information for Olathe, KS

Latitude: 38.880788 -- Longitude: -94.803184

Other Area Cities: Monticello Leawood Bonner Springs Overland Park Prairie Village Olathe

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Olathe (pronounced O-Lay'-tha) is a city located in northeast Kansas, and is the second most populous city and county seat of Johnson County. It is also the fifth most populous city in the state. As a suburb of Kansas City, it is the fifth largest city included in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by the cities of Lenexa to the north and Overland Park to the east. In 2005 the city had an estimated population of 111,334. It is not only one of the state's fastest growing cities in terms of population for its size, but indeed one of the fastest growing in the nation. A 2005 article in the magazine Midwest Living named Olathe to be the second most livable city with a population larger than 100,000 in the Midwest. In 2006 CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Olathe 13th on its list of the 100 Best Places to Live in the United States. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Kansas 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Olathe	Kansas	United States
Population	92,962	2,688,418	281,421,906
Median age	30.8	35.2	35.3
Median age for Male	30.2	33.7	34
Median age for Female	31.4	36.5	36.5
Households	32,314	1,037,891	105,480,101
Household population	91,367	2,606,468	273,643,273
Average household size	2.83	2.51	2.59
Families	24,627	701,547	71,787,347
Average family size	3.24	3.07	3.14
Housing units	33,343	1,131,200	115,904,641
Occupied units	32,314	1,037,891	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,029	93,309	10,424,540

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