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 Harrisburg, PA

Latitude: 40.269789 -- Longitude: -76.875613

Other Area Cities: Harrisburg Camp Hill Colonial Park New Cumberland Mechanicsburg Middletown Progress Dillsburg

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Harrisburg is the capital of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a state of the United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 48,950. The Harrisburg area population was 643,820, making it the fourth most populous metropolitan area in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Allentown. Harrisburg is the county seat of Dauphin County and lies on the east bank of the Susquehanna River, 105 miles (169 km) west-northwest of Philadelphia. Harrisburg has played a critical role in American history during the Westward Migration, the American Civil War, and the Industrial Revolution. During part of the 19th century, the building of the Pennsylvania Canal and later the Pennsylvania Railroad, allowed Harrisburg to become one of the most industrialized cities in the Northeastern United States. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Pennsylvania 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Harrisburg	Pennsylvania	United States
Population	48,950	12,281,054	281,421,906
Median age	33	38	35.3
Median age for Male	32.3	36.5	34
Median age for Female	33.6	39.4	36.5
Households	20,561	4,777,003	105,480,101
Household population	47,698	11,847,753	273,643,273
Average household size	2.32	2.48	2.59
Families	10,912	3,208,388	71,787,347
Average family size	3.15	3.04	3.14
Housing units	24,314	5,249,750	115,904,641
Occupied units	20,561	4,777,003	105,480,101
Vacant units	3,753	472,747	10,424,540

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