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 Menifee, CA

Latitude: 33.708291 -- Longitude: -117.199152

Other Area Cities: Canyon Lake Hemet Lakeland Village Lake Elsinore Sun City Murrieta

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Sun City is a census-designated place (CDP) in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 17,773 at the 2000 census. Recently, there has been an effort to incorporate Sun City and some or all of the nearby areas of Menifee and Romoland as Menifee Valley. Riverside County is currently investigating the viability of the proposed new city. The median income for a household in the CDP was $29,814, and the median income for a family was $38,131. Males had a median income of $41,174 versus $29,036 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $19,859. About 6.0% of families and 8.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.4% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

California 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Sun City	California	United States
Population	17,773	33,871,648	281,421,906
Median age	66.1	33.3	35.3
Median age for Male	64.3	32.2	34
Median age for Female	67.3	34.4	36.5
Households	8,750	11,502,870	105,480,101
Household population	17,396	33,051,894	273,643,273
Average household size	1.99	2.87	2.59
Families	5,199	7,920,049	71,787,347
Average family size	2.57	3.43	3.14
Housing units	9,440	12,214,549	115,904,641
Occupied units	8,750	11,502,870	105,480,101
Vacant units	690	711,679	10,424,540

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