Above all, the most important strategy for making the most you can when you sell your home is how you price it right from the start. This is not a step you can afford to make an error on.
Zillow, the company that tracks more home sales and amasses more stats than any other company I know of, tells us these surprising facts:
1) If you price your house too high and then reduce it later, you will end up selling for LESS than if you had priced it correctly from the get-go.
2) If you live in a neighborhood with a Chinese population of over 10%, your house will sell for more if the price ends in a lucky number (lucky according to Chinese culture).
3) The same applies if your address ends in a lucky Chinese number.
4) For the general American population, house prices that end with the two digits 99 sell faster and for more. There seems to be something about 99 that makes people think it is a bargain.
In an experiment where the same dress was put for sale at $35 and $39.99, it sold better at $39.99. In another example, a wine seller sold more bottles of a particular wine when the price ended in .99 even though it was more expensive than the previous price. Evidently, the same applies to selling houses.
5) Women and men real estate agents seemed to be equal at selling homes. That is, according to Zillow, neither sex outsold the other. However, women tended to over-price homes more often than men, but they were also quicker to drop the price. The men who over-priced a home tended to stick with it longer and lower the price by less when it was reduced.
That last point may prove to be controversial. If you disagree, I’d love to hear it! To leave a comment, see the top of this post, right side.
6) There is nothing you can do to control this one, but I found it interesting that house addresses that contained the words Place, Way, or Court sold for more than addresses with the more generic words of Street or Avenue.
The second most important strategy for home sellers is to present their property in the most favorable light possible. If you were going for a job interview, would you wear a rumpled shirt, dirty slacks, and smelly shoes? The same goes for your home. Clean it, fix it, de-clutter it, and stage it to best advantage. Listen to the advice of your experienced real estate agent. He or she is not emotionally attached to your belongings, so when they tell you that something has to go, take the advice.
Third, don’t over-do the remodeling right before placing your house on the market. Your taste in décor might be different than a buyer’s, so you will not recoup the total cost. Discuss the possible advantage of selling “as is” with your Realtor and make only the improvements he or she suggests. Not everyone is going to pay more for a swimming pool, sunroom, or granite counters.
As always, thank you for stopping by my blog.