How to Sell Your Home.. Discount!

How to sell your home.. Discount!

The economy is down and the market is flooded with properties, both retail and Bank owned. This is not a good time to list a property unless you can sell at a discount.

I’ve read lots of articles lately encouraging low pricing to get your property sold. Trulia, PMI, Moodys, the Wall Street Journal, even the National Association of Realtors all say that retail pricing will not get your property looked at in this market.

This morning on Facebook, a Realtor posted that only 25% of the listed properties will actually sell! That stat is end of 2nd Quarter 2010 based on GRRA- Greensboro area of Guilford County – Realtor Association. Yikes!

Trulia announced that 24 percent of listings currently on the market as of July 1, 2010 experienced at least one price reduction, up 9 percent from the previous month. They go onto say that 22 of the top 50 cities across the U.S. experienced price reduction levels at 30 percent or more compared to just 10 cities the previous month.

It appears that the expiration of the tax credit has hit the market hard and there are far fewer “left over” buyers now that the credit is gone than expected. Some are predicting that, due to the slow summer sales, we will experience a double dip in the housing crises during the second half of 2010.

The mortgage insurer, PMI, was projecting an increase in existing home sales for 2010 of 6.1 percent. This month, they lowered that projection to 2.9 percent. Moody’s Analytics is expecting house prices to fall another 5% between now and Spring of 2011. They predict that, even though pricing will not increase much over the next year, there should be more buyers in a year than there are now.

What all this tells me is, everyone’s guessing… but the forecasts are grim.

So, if you have to sell now, what do you do?

1.  Make your house sing! Whatever you have, paint it, clean it, fix it, make sure it works properly and looks great. That includes the yard, the exterior and the interior. Don’t forget the attic and crawl space. Buyers have options, make yours stand out.

2. Price aggressively (low). Start as low as you can. Buyers are still going to ask for, and expect, reductions and they will also expect that anything in your home that isn’t perfect be fixed.

3. Be prepared to lower your asking price on a regular basis, every 4-6 weeks. And, when you lower your price, make it a significant drop. If you make small drops, they’ll notice and wait for more. Make a significant drop so buyers are eager to jump in ahead of others.

4. If you can lower below the next $5000 increment, it gets more attention. For example, people tend to search for segments, like “up to $150,000”. If you’re priced at $154,000, dropping to $149,000 puts you into a whole new search category.

5.  Remember: you may take a hit when you sell, but when you buy, you get all the benefits you’re forfeiting in your present home. You’ll be able to buy now at a discount for the same reasons you’re selling at one.

For even more great selling tips: check out my book, The Essential Handbook for Selling a Home.

Do you need to sell? What are you doing to get your home SOLD?

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2 Comments

  1. People need to expect to get less when they sell their homes than they shoot for. Again, the good news is that they should be able to find a deal when they buy something new.

    Thanks for writing and congratulations on your sale!

  2. This is some great info and a big wake-up call for me. I recently sold a property in Thomasville and was a little bummed that a couple of things didn’t go more my way (i.e. closing costs, inspection tidbits, etc.). This post proves what a blessing it was that it was able to sell in this market. I’ve passed this along to some friends who are trying to sell right now as well. A lot of folks don’t have that wiggle room to “price aggressively” in this market and it’s going to hurt their efforts.

    Thanks!

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