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 Edina, MN

Latitude: 44.895664 -- Longitude: -93.354675

Other Area Cities: Coon Rapids Brooklyn Park Edina Richfield Fridley Robbinsdale Saint Anthony Brooklyn Center New Brighton Shakopee Wayzata Eden Prairie Golden Valley Minneapolis New Hope Saint Louis Park

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Edina is a first-ring suburb situated immediately southwest of Minneapolis in Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA. Edina began as a small farming and milling community in the 1860s, consisting of mostly Scottish and Irish immigrants, and today has grown to a full service metropolitan community. Today, the only remnants of the farms that once stretched across the city can be seen in some street names, which were named after the families who operated them and sold or donated their land for residential development. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Minnesota 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Edina	Minnesota	United States
Population	47,425	4,919,479	281,421,906
Median age	44.5	35.4	35.3
Median age for Male	42.3	34.4	34
Median age for Female	46.4	36.3	36.5
Households	20,996	1,895,127	105,480,101
Household population	47,135	4,783,596	273,643,273
Average household size	2.24	2.52	2.59
Families	12,878	1,255,141	71,787,347
Average family size	2.91	3.09	3.14
Housing units	21,669	2,065,946	115,904,641
Occupied units	20,996	1,895,127	105,480,101
Vacant units	673	170,819	10,424,540

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