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!

As of 11/26/09 the Lin Litaker RePage is ranked at 9,119 with 35 points.
The monthly top RePage owner will receive a cash prize. Help this agent by bookmarking this site and posting it to blogs and other Web pages and encourage others to visit.

Local Information for Salisbury, NC

Latitude: 35.668289 -- Longitude: -80.478479

Enter our Photo Sweepstakes and Win $200 for your Salisbury photos!

To see random photos for other cities Click Here.

Submit your photos of Salisbury and become eligible to win $200. Click Here for details.

As of the census of 2000, there were 26,462 people, 10,276 households, and 6,186 families residing in the city. The population density was 574.6/km² (1,488.3/mi²). There were 11,288 housing units at an average density of 245.1/km² (634.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 57.30% White, 37.56% African American, 0.28% Native American, 1.39% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 1.92% from other races, and 1.48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.30% of the population. There were 10,276 households out of which 26.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.0% were married couples living together, 17.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.8% were non-families. 34.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 2.92. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

North Carolina 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Salisbury	North Carolina	United States
Population	26,462	8,049,313	281,421,906
Median age	37.1	35.3	35.3
Median age for Male	34.6	33.8	34
Median age for Female	39.6	36.7	36.5
Households	10,276	3,132,013	105,480,101
Household population	23,483	7,795,432	273,643,273
Average household size	2.29	2.49	2.59
Families	6,183	2,158,869	71,787,347
Average family size	2.92	2.98	3.14
Housing units	11,288	3,523,944	115,904,641
Occupied units	10,276	3,132,013	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,012	391,931	10,424,540

Visit US Census