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 Elkhart, IN

Latitude: 41.683149 -- Longitude: -85.968798

Other Area Cities: Elkhart South Bend Goshen Mishawaka

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Elkhart has long been the headquarters of numerous manufacturers of musical instruments and accessories, of which most of the surviving companies have been absorbed into the Conn-Selmer conglomerate. In 1884 Dr. Franklin Miles launched the Miles Medical Co. in Elkhart, which in later decades produced products like Alka-Seltzer and One-A-Day vitamins. Later, the Miles Medical Co. was purchased by the German company Bayer, in 1979 and was consolidated into the larger Pittsburgh-based Bayer, Inc. by 1995. Elkhart is home to many Recreational vehicle (RV) manufacturers, including the Damon Corporation, Four Winds, Hy-Line, Keystone, Monaco, Skyline, Sun Valley, and Travel Supreme. Many other manufacturers, including Dutchman, Heartland, Gulf Stream, and Jayco, can be found nearby in Goshen, Middlebury, Nappanee, and Wakarusa. Due to the high concentration of the RV industry in the area, Elkhart is dubbed the "RV Capital of the World." -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Indiana 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Elkhart	Indiana	United States
Population	51,874	6,080,485	281,421,906
Median age	30.8	35.2	35.3
Median age for Male	30	33.9	34
Median age for Female	31.9	36.5	36.5
Households	20,072	2,336,306	105,480,101
Household population	51,216	5,902,331	273,643,273
Average household size	2.55	2.53	2.59
Families	12,506	1,602,501	71,787,347
Average family size	3.16	3.05	3.14
Housing units	21,688	2,532,319	115,904,641
Occupied units	20,072	2,336,306	105,480,101
Vacant units	1,616	196,013	10,424,540

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