You love your Tampa Bay home. You’ve spent years making it perfect. Now, you’ve made the decision to sell because as much as you love it…your home no longer meets all of your needs. Once you’ve made up your mind to sell – you must make one of the hardest decisions in the whole process. How much will you ask for your home?
It’s a loaded question. After all, it’s YOUR home! You love the design choices you’ve made and all of the money you’ve put in to keep it in great condition. Your idea and the market’s idea of what your home is worth might be right on par or they might be as different as night and day. So, how do you come up with the perfect price? You want your home to sell for as much money as possible – so you can’t list too low but you also don’t want it to sit on the market forever, so you can’t list it too high. There’s a lot of strategy involved in finding the right price for a home. Here are some tips on how to come up with the best price.
1.) What Have Other People Sold For?
The first part of the process is to know what other people in your area have listed and SOLD their homes for. These are called “comps”. This does not include homes that are currently on the market – we’ll get to those in a moment. Comps are strictly homes that have actually sold. It’s important to look at how much someone actually forked over for a house similar to yours. Be sure to look at the price per square foot as well. If you can’t find it – just divide the sales price by the number of square feet in the house.
2.) What Are You Up Against?
Next, take a look at what’s currently on the market in your neighborhood. Are there any homes that are similar to yours with a similar lot and location? What are they listed for? How long have they been on the market? Remember, these homes are going to be your competition. You’ll want to make sure your home looks its best before putting it on the market. If you want the most money for your home, you’ll want to help buyers see themselves living there. How can you make your home show as well or better than the other homes available in your area? Take family photos off the walls, neutralize any extreme paint colors, take everything off of your kitchen countertops and make sure your house is “model ready” when your MLS photos are taken. If your home has small closets or lacks storage space make sure to empty those areas out and make them look as spacious as possible. You are putting on a show, after all, and the better your show… the more money you’ll likely get.
3.) Be Realistic About Your “Upgrades”
We know, those window treatments cost you a fortune but if they’re more than a few years old you probably aren’t going to get anything back from them. Yes, really. But what about extreme renovations? Perhaps you gutted the kitchen and remodeled it entirely or maybe you added a delightful Master Suite. It turns out there is a great resource to help you estimate what you should expect back for your renovations. It’s called the Cost vs. Value report and the 2015 edition is available now for the South Atlantic region that includes the Bay area. The report looks at statistics for all kinds of work. For example, a kitchen remodel in an upscale home will likely only return about 60% of what you probably would spend.. It’s important to remember that this isn’t exact but it’s a very good place to start.
The bottom line – you might not get back everything you spent on making your home perfect. That’s just reality. However, you could always be an exception to the rule.
4.) Consider a Tease
Nothing entices a buyer like the opportunity to jump on a listing first. Have you seen all of the “Coming Soon” signs? Some of them go right from “Coming Soon” to “Sold”. It sounds great, right?! A little tease can give you an edge against the competition. Giving buyers a chance to see a Realtor’s sign in your yard or on a website before it’s actually listed in the MLS can give you a chance to try out your price range. See how successful you are in those first few days and then make a decision on whether to adjust your price or leave it where it’s at.
5.) Price for Negotiation
Everyone wants to feel like they’re getting a “deal” even when they’re not. Keep this in mind when coming up with the price of your home. While you might luck out and have competition to buy your property you might also have someone come in much lower than you expected. Make sure your price allows for a little negotiating room. If you’re already prepared to give a little than you know you’re the real winner of the negotiation.
You’ll also want to consider how you list your home. You know when you go to Target and everything is priced with a 9 at the end? Apples $1.49… Hair Spray $10.99… you get the idea. Well, it’s based on science. Yep, science says your brain rounds that .99 down – not up. So those apples are a dollar and the hair spray is 10 bucks. So, list your house for $699,000 and you’ll get buyers searching for anything under $700,000. List your house at $705,000 and you probably won’t even show up in their search results. It’s retail strategy and they aren’t using it because it doesn’t work!
Bonus: Use Your Realtor
You’ve got your St. Pete Realtor for a reason – so use them! They see homes on the market all of the time and they’re willing to come and look at yours. That means they are going to see all of those “upgrades” you’ve made. Give them a chance to do their jobs and tell you what they think your home is worth. Ask them how they came up with the number and find out if they did their homework. After all, you need them to be on their game! A good Pinellas Realtor knows their market like the back of their hand. Capitalize on that resource and do your own homework – then price your home to sell!
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