Pricing Your Home

1. Automated valuations
If you just need a ballpark figure for the value of your home, you may start with any of the many online resources available. These tools will ask you a few questions about your home such as square footage, bedrooms, and bathrooms, then run your address through one or several models. A better solution is to subscribe to our neighborhood stats which incorporate finer data points down to the builder and model of your house.
2. Subscribe to neighborhood activity
If you want to keep in touch with sales in your immediate neighborhood, we offer a free market snapshot subscription. You will receive automated emails each time a home comes on the market or is sold in your neighborhood. What distinguishes our report is our precise neighborhood definition, down to builder and model.
3. Review comparable sales
It is notable that while banks use appraisers to confirm the price of a home before making a loan, these same banks exclusively use Real Estate Agents to obtain a Broker Price Opinion when marketing a repossessed home. A Real Estate agent is generally the most qualified professional to prepare a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). It is an analysis of recent sales of similar homes in your area, how long they were on the market and closing prices net of concessions. You may request a CMA from any agent you find online or, like banks, you may bring a local expert into your home to incorporate data that only eyes, ears and a sense of style can process.
4. Learn about pricing strategies
Selling a home is part science and part art. It is critically important to educate yourself about different pricing strategies and their consequences before you sit down with your agent and set your initial listing price. Our pricing strategies section is a must read.
5. Price for online search ranges
Once you have a price range for your home, pick a price point that will bring in the largest number of qualified buyers into your home.
6. Place yourself in the front of the line
Once you have determined an appropriate price range for your home, pick a price that puts you in front of the line as the most desirable home in a particular range.
7. Price for a bidding war
Being in front of the line might put you in the enviable position to generate buyer competition a.k.a. bidding wars in seller markets. Once a buyer is emotionally attached to your home and has committed to making an offer, winning can sometimes become more important than an objective market value for your home. Pricing slightly bellow market is more likely to generate above market prices than the opposite strategy.
8. Adjust our price quickly
Still believe that shooting for the moon is the right strategy for you? Be prepared to disappoint buyers that see nicer homes in the same price range. The sooner you lower your price to meet interested buyers in the appropriate price range, the less aggressive their offers will be.
9. Price for market conditions
The price of your home will be affected by factors such as interest rate, season, supply, and demand. There are specific strategies for Buyers’ markets, Sellers’ markets, and Neutral markets.