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 Claremore, OK

Latitude: 36.315181 -- Longitude: -95.612784

Other Area Cities: Broken Arrow Tulsa Claremore Owasso

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Claremore's economy is diversified. Baker Hughes has a large presence in the town, along with several other large companies in Claremore Industrial Park, which is only a few miles away from the Port of Catoosa on the Kerr-McClellan Navigational Channel (Verdigris River and Arkansas River). Farming and ranching are large parts of the local economy. Retail businesses are moving to Claremore in greater and greater numbers. Coal mining was an important local industry, but in the last 40 years many mines have been closed and environmentally restored.Claremore Public Schools is the public school district serving the city of Claremore. It currently consists of Claremore High School, Will Rogers Junior High, Central Upper Elementary, Westside Elementary, Claremont Elementary, Stuart Roosa Elementary, and the Alternative Learning Center. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Oklahoma 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Claremore	Oklahoma	United States
Population	15,873	3,450,654	281,421,906
Median age	35.7	35.5	35.3
Median age for Male	34	33.9	34
Median age for Female	37.2	36.9	36.5
Households	6,283	1,342,293	105,480,101
Household population	15,278	3,338,279	273,643,273
Average household size	2.43	2.49	2.59
Families	4,164	921,750	71,787,347
Average family size	3.02	3.02	3.14
Housing units	6,784	1,514,400	115,904,641
Occupied units	6,283	1,342,293	105,480,101
Vacant units	501	172,107	10,424,540

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