Not Underpricing, Nor Overpricing
Introduction
Before diving into the main discussions, I want to alleviate any concerns and offer peace of mind and assurance to you, the homeowner and seller, that this guide does not seek to underprice to sell our home for cheap or under the market value, but nor does it seek to overprice our home either.
Pricing our home appropriately
As a property agent, I fully understand that any homeowner wanting to sell their home has a relatively straightforward goal - to sell for the very best price, and (in most cases) in a timely manner.
Before I begin diving into the main subject, I want to take the opportunity to mention, for your peace of mind and assurance that, nowhere in this guide do I propose that we underprice our home simply to secure a sale, but at the same time, nowhere in this guide do I propose that we overprice our home either!
Rather, I propose (throughout this guide) that we price our home appropriately as the best means to achieve the best price.
The commonly utilised strategy for pricing very rarely yields the best price
It is known and understood by many that the most commonly utilised strategy for pricing a property that’s new to the market is to overprice it to begin with to ‘test the waters’ (i.e. test the market) for a period of time, and if there’s insufficient interest in the property, then the price is reduced systematically until it is sold.
Although this pricing strategy is commonly utilised, it very rarely yields the best price!
For clarification, I refer to the ‘best price’ to mean the market value or above.
Such a strategy in fact generally tends to yield, more often than not, a lower price, and at times, considerably lower than the market value!
Want to achieve the best price? Pricing appropriately is the aim of the game
The aim of this guide is to offer a much different pricing strategy that is much more likely to yield the best price for our home!
But do bear in mind that moving away from the commonly utlised strategy for pricing (i.e. overpricing to test the waters) does not simply mean that we’re all of a sudden aiming to price to sell our home for cheap or below the market. The aim of the game in achieving the best price is to price appropriately, the determination of which involves a number of key factors that we must consider, which this guide will explore in the following sections.
I am not of the belief that underpricing nor overpricing is the best way to serve you, the homeowner and seller, no matter how tempting the latter option may be!
Working out the appropriate price to list our home can certainly be a tricky path to navigate. It demands a good understanding of the market conditions that we’re selling our home in, as well as understanding how to best adapt our own marketing to those conditions. Hopefully, the path can be made easier to navigate with the directions in this guide!
The market is the ultimate decision-maker
I should bring to one’s attention early at this stage that the ultimate decision-maker is in fact, the market, and any property for sale is bound by the market’s decision as to its value, i.e. the market value.
It is quite common to find many sellers and agents pricing their property at a price point that they believe to be ‘appropriate’, but in fact the market considers it to be overpriced - thereby resulting in the property either being sold for less than expected or becoming stagnant and stale on the market! The most obvious answer for such overpricing is that those sellers and agents are wanting to achieve the ‘best’ price without fully accounting for or appreciating the market conditions that they’re trying to sell in. Essentially, they’re trying to work outside of the market (more specifically, outside of the market’s tolerance), which usually does not yield the best outcome!
We cannot control the market, but we can control the marketing
I propose (throughout this guide) that we work within the market - this means that we fully account for and appreciate the market conditions that we’re selling in.
And although we cannot control the market, we can certainly control the marketing - this means that although the market is the ultimate decision-maker regarding the value of our home, we can certainly adapt our pricing (marketing) strategy to the market in order to swing the odds in our favour, enabling ourselves a far better chance to achieve the best price!
How can we work within the market and control the marketing to achieve the best price?
All will be covered throughout this guide!
The aim of the guide is to shine some light on the what, why, where, when, who and how of pricing our home appropriately, where the market does agree with our pricing, and is at a price point that enables us to achieve the best price!
After all, our job as property agents is to achieve the very best price for our clients, as well as to provide an overall superb service!
Getting in touch with me
If you would like to discuss any of the above points with me further, or if you need help or have any questions in general, click here to get in touch with me.
If you want to know how we can achieve the best price for our home, as well as know the traps and pitfalls to avoid that influence it to sell for less or leave it stagnant and/or stale on the market, come join me in the next sections.