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 Sandy, UT

Latitude: 40.572415 -- Longitude: -111.85961

Other Area Cities: Sandy Bennion Cottonwood Heights Holladay Midvale Murray Riverton Salt Lake City West Jordan South Jordan South Salt Lake Taylorsville West Valley City Kearns

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Sandy is a city in Salt Lake County, Utah and a suburb of Salt Lake City. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 88,418. A 2005 estimate placed its population at 89,664, making it the sixth-largest city in Utah. The city is known for the South Towne Center shopping mall; Jordan Commons, a large entertainment complex, and is the location of the Southtowne Exposition Center, which regularly hosts conventions. It was also selected in August 2006 as the location of Real Salt Lake's new soccer-specific stadium, the Sandy Stadium, to be finished in 2008. Groundbreaking occurred on August 12, 2006. No official name for the stadium has yet been announced.The median income for a household in the city was $66,458, and the median income for a family was $70,801. Males had a median income of $47,031 versus $29,661 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,928. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Utah 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Sandy	Utah	United States
Population	88,418	2,233,169	281,421,906
Median age	29.1	27.1	35.3
Median age for Male	27.7	26.7	34
Median age for Female	30.4	27.7	36.5
Households	25,737	701,281	105,480,101
Household population	87,894	2,192,689	273,643,273
Average household size	3.42	3.13	2.59
Families	21,786	535,294	71,787,347
Average family size	3.73	3.57	3.14
Housing units	26,579	768,594	115,904,641
Occupied units	25,737	701,281	105,480,101
Vacant units	842	67,313	10,424,540

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