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 Folsom, CA

Latitude: 38.672127 -- Longitude: -121.157838

Other Area Cities: Granite Bay Carmichael Citrus Heights Rancho Cordova Cameron Park Folsom Fair Oaks Rocklin Orangevale

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Folsom is a city in Sacramento County, California, USA. Though Folsom is most commonly known by its famous Folsom Prison, it is a thriving suburb of Sacramento. Folsom started as a small town called Granite City, mostly occupied by gold miners seeking fortune in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Though few amassed a great deal of wealth, the city prospered due to the Joseph Folsom's lobbying to get a railway to connect the town with Sacramento. Though Folsom died in 1855, the town was later renamed to Folsom in his honor. The railway was abandoned in the 1950's but later opened up as the terminus of the Gold Line of Sacramento Regional Transit District's light rail service. A few former gold-rush era towns are located within city limits of Folsom, including Prairie City, and Mormon Island. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

California 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Folsom	California	United States
Population	51,884	33,871,648	281,421,906
Median age	35.9	33.3	35.3
Median age for Male	35.4	32.2	34
Median age for Female	36.6	34.4	36.5
Households	17,196	11,502,870	105,480,101
Household population	44,940	33,051,894	273,643,273
Average household size	2.61	2.87	2.59
Families	12,527	7,920,049	71,787,347
Average family size	3.08	3.43	3.14
Housing units	17,968	12,214,549	115,904,641
Occupied units	17,196	11,502,870	105,480,101
Vacant units	772	711,679	10,424,540

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