When is comes to real estate pricing… Honesty is the best policy. In 20+ year of experience & 1000 of transactions numbers speak for themselves. The buyer’s settlement price has averaged 95% of the seller’s asking price, when the property is listed at my suggested market value.

Well what can it hurt to ask more, you can always lower your price right? Wrong, it cost you time which = $. In the first 30 days a property is on the market it is seen by the largest number of qualified people. Buyers and Agents surf the internet and most have a set of criteria to look at #1 is price, other factors may be size, towns, acreage, and many times they set their search to view only the new listings (listed the last 7 days for example). So if you over-price the property and your potential buyer doesn’t see it because it’s above their comfort price, then there is also a good chance that even if you lower the price later it will have been on long enough that it is outside of that buyer’s search pattern. Or worse yet they see the price go lower and wonder what is wrong with the property, and still pass on viewing it. So with taxes, mortgage payments, insurance and utilities waiting to sell could be costing you thousands each month and can be holding you back from doing what you intended to do with the money from the sale.

Another thing to remember, if you are buying a replacement property with the proceeds of your sale you are trading equity. Think of it this way, if your selling price is lower than you hoped than it also stands to reason your immediate buying price may be lower than you were prepared to spend as well.

Over the years I have prepared opinions of value for seller who then listed with other companies for much higher than suggested asking prices. Only to see the sale come through the county registry (6 months later) at the price I suggested, or in some cases for less money and sellers missed the market window.

Call an experienced agent for a current opinion of market value.