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 Cleveland, TN

Latitude: 35.171483 -- Longitude: -84.871067

Other Area Cities: Cleveland Ooltewah Collegedale

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Cleveland is a city in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. Cleveland is home to several industries, including household cooking equipment, foodstuff, textiles, furniture, storage batteries, pharmaceuticals, industrial cleaning products, photographic processing, industrial and domestic chemicals, and automotive parts. The city is home to Cleveland State Community College, a unit of the Tennessee Board of Regents. There are several thoughts as to the origin of the city's name. As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 37,192 people, 15,037 households, and 9,518 families residing in the city. One belief is that it is named after Cleveland, England. Other traditions say the community was named for Benjamin Cleveland, Revolutionary War soldier; or for John Cleveland, an original local settler. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Tennessee 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Cleveland	Tennessee	United States
Population	37,192	5,689,283	281,421,906
Median age	34	35.9	35.3
Median age for Male	31.7	34.5	34
Median age for Female	36.2	37.2	36.5
Households	15,037	2,232,905	105,480,101
Household population	35,041	5,541,337	273,643,273
Average household size	2.33	2.48	2.59
Families	9,511	1,547,835	71,787,347
Average family size	2.9	2.99	3.14
Housing units	16,431	2,439,443	115,904,641
Occupied units	15,037	2,232,905	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,394	206,538	10,424,540

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