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 Petaluma, CA

Latitude: 38.245849 -- Longitude: -122.631276

Other Area Cities: Corte Madera San Anselmo Sausalito Mill Valley Kentfield Larkspur Green Brae Belvedere Fairfax Sonoma Healdsburg Glen Ellen Graton Bloomfield Guerneville Napa Cotati San Rafael Santa Rosa Novato Black Point Nicasio Petaluma Marinwood

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Petaluma is a city with a well preserved historic center in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 54,548. Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park contains the Rancho Petaluma Adobe, a National Historic Landmark. It was built beginning in 1836 by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, then Commandant of the San Francisco Presidio. It was the center of a vast 66,000 acre (270 km²) ranch stretching from Petaluma Creek to Sonoma Creek. The adobe is considered one of the best preserved buildings of its era in Northern California. Petaluma is a transliteration of the Coast Miwok phrase péta lúuma which means hill backside and probably refers to Petaluma's proximity to Sonoma Mountain. Pioneered by the Spanish in 1776, the Petaluma area was part of a 66,000-acre Mexican land grant of 1844 by Governor Pio Pico to General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo called the Rancho Soscol. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

California 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Petaluma	California	United States
Population	54,548	33,871,648	281,421,906
Median age	37.1	33.3	35.3
Median age for Male	35.8	32.2	34
Median age for Female	38.4	34.4	36.5
Households	19,932	11,502,870	105,480,101
Household population	53,808	33,051,894	273,643,273
Average household size	2.7	2.87	2.59
Families	14,014	7,920,049	71,787,347
Average family size	3.16	3.43	3.14
Housing units	20,304	12,214,549	115,904,641
Occupied units	19,932	11,502,870	105,480,101
Vacant units	372	711,679	10,424,540

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