Pricing your Home

| step 1: preparing to sell | step 2: pricing | step 3: marketing | step 4: selling

Getting Started

When you are trying to determine a fair price for your home you have the choice of hiring a professional appraiser, consulting a real estate agent or guessing.

9 times out of 10 homes are sold by real estate agents who conduct a Comparative Market Analysis of the home. Sometimes, however, the home’s price is determined by a professional appraisal. The decision is yours; however each home is different and the employment of one option or another can depend on the value of the home, the amount of similar comparable properties in the area and a host of other considerations.

If you decide to hire an appraiser, look for one who has worked with lenders. There is no guarantee that you will sell your home for its appraised value, but expect to get a considerable amount of information for the price you pay the appraiser. The price can be as high 300 or 400 dollars, so be prepared.

If you choose to enlist a real estate broker to do a comparative market analysis of your property you should also know what to expect. A CMA (comparative market analysis) is a written evaluation of your property’s potential market value. The analysis should include details on recent property sales in your area with comparisons of those homes to yours. Details on current homes listed in your neighborhood, including information on how long they have been on the market what assets they do and don’t have relative to your home and sometimes what they sold for previously should be included in your CMA as well. A good analysis will also break down the price per square foot of each of the homes included in the analysis. While this is slightly arbitrary, the information can be key in assessing a home without any reasonably similar homes in the area to compare it to.
In my analyses I include a discussion of what prices have been doing in the neighborhood in question over the course of the past six months. I also discuss what events are on the horizon or currently occurring in the neighborhood which may impact the home’s value at that time or in the future. Discussion of my overall marketing campaign is normally relative to this conversation. Comparable properties are not the only item a CMA should include so expect details regarding the housing market in general, including interest rate trends, current and future developments relative to your neighborhood’s infrastructure and numerous details related to your home’s assets and those of the homes compared. Price impacts everything so make sure you get the justification.

Comparative Market Analysis (Free)
If you would like me to conduct a comparative marketing analysis of your home to determine the potential market value it would bring, please feel free to contact me via phone or email.  Email: jim@pdxhomes.com Phone: 503.497.5330 or Teresa Catania Email: teresa@pdxhomes.com Phone: 503.497

The Pitfalls of an Overpriced Home

When an agent overprices a home it sits on the market. When a home sits on the market it needs to have its price reduced to attract buyers and stimulate interest. Sometimes this reduction can create a price point lower than what the home should have actually brought when initially listed.

Remember, the first two weeks of a home’s listing are the most important. Agents who inflate the value of a home in order to get a listing end up having to tell those sellers to reduce their price after a month or more. Once this occurs, the motivation and activity related to the home is lost. Priced correctly, taking into account the market at that immediate time should give you no reason to act anxious. A good Comparative Market Analysis and professional Real Estate Broker will justify their suggested price point through facts not promises.

Price Trends

The primary reason for properties not selling in a reasonable amount of time is improper pricing. The Portland market can be notorious for price reductions. However, please note that this generalization can be attributed to more than simply improperly priced homes.

Sometimes it is simply a "buyers market" in which there is more sellers wanting to sell than there are buyers. When this is the case price wars can ensue and price reductions can become the norm. Property values move downwards as supply exceeds demand.

At other times your neighborhood may be of particular interest to more homebuyers than there are available listings in which case your property value will go up as demand increases. This point is important to take into account when deciding when to put your home on the market. If you have the option of time then you may want to keep your home off the market until the three other homes on your street sell.