I take an ungodly number of listing appointments, as I call a lot of FSBO’s and expired listings.  I like to have a large inventory of homes for my buyers to choose from, as well as other agents buyers.  There are some things that every seller should know before they contact a Realtor to list their home, and we’ll talk about a number of them in this blog. 

First of all, your Realtor does not price the home.  A lot of sellers think that the Realtor will come in, show them the Comparable Market Analysis, and that’s the price it should be listed and sell  for.  Other (more unrealistic) sellers think that their home is worth a certain figure, sometimes one they dream about, and that’s the number that the nervous Realtor or agent will put the home on the market for, unable and unwilling to tell the seller what they REALLY need to know about accurate pricing.

There is one thing, and one thing only, that determines the price of your home:  the market.  You can sit there all day and think your home is worth $300,000 since that’s what you have invested in it.  You can think since you owe $150,000 on your mortgage, it should sell for at least $30,000 more than that, right?  Wrong.  This is a crazy market we’re in right now.  We see things, as Realtors, that we’ve never seen before.  Although it’s a tremendous time to sell because of the vast group of buyers out there searching for a home because of the $8000 First Time Home Buyer Tax credit (and the expanded $6500 previous home owner tax credit), if you do not price your home accurately and adjust to market conditions, your home will sit on the market for the entire length of the 180 day contract you sign with your Realtor.

So how do we avoid this?  Well, it starts with being realistic.  Anyone in the world would love to make tens of thousands of dollars on the sale of their home.  Although this still happens, it happens very rarely.  I’ve seen many sellers in the past year that had to bring some cash to the closing table.  They may have spent too much on remodeling their home, and now they’re trapped in their mortgage.  If they can’t afford to keep making the payments, they may be forced into a short sale, or more drastically, a foreclosure.

I’ve seen other sellers, who do not owe a single dollar on their home, hold off and refuse to reduce the price because they “think” their home is worth more than what their Realtor is suggesting.  You can do as many CMA’s, or you can have as many appraisals completed as you want, but they matter not.  A home is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it!  Right now in my local MLS (the Greater Scranton Board of Realtors), there are over 2100 homes for sale.  Comparing that to the “sellers market” in 2003 and 2004, there were 1200 homes for sale.  Right now, buyers can choose to be picky, and rule out your house because of the finest little detail.  Right now, agents can choose to keep your house off the list of homes that they show their buyers, because of a bad commission that was agreed upon by the seller’s agent and the sellers.  A lot of sellers think “Oh yeah!  I just got my Realtor to take a 4% commission!  I win!”.  Haha, wrong!  If you do that as a seller, you’re really reducing the chance that another agent will sell your home.  If two homes were priced identically, in the same neighborhood, and offered the same number of bedrooms, baths, and square footage, but one home offered a 6% commission and the other offered a 5% commission, if you were the agent working with the buyer, picking and choosing which home to suggest writing the offer for, which home would YOU pick to sell your buyer?  As much as we don’t want to admit it, the 6% commission will attract more Buyer’s Agents, and therefore attract more offers as a result.

Oh, I’ve got a lot more.  But I won’t give it all away here!  If you’re thinking about selling your home, or just want some advice about what you think it might be worth in todays market, give me a call on my cell.  If you’re nervous and don’t want to speak with me, write me an email or send me a text. You can even facebook me! I don’t care!  I’d be glad to help in anyway that I can!