Is wanting a high price such a big deal?
April 30th, 2008 categories: Sellers
 If the seller’s price is too high, people will just offer less, right? Wrong. Pricing properly matters.
Pricing property too high can end up netting sellers less money than if they’d priced it right in the first place. First, there will be a smaller pool of buyers who’ll even look at overpriced properties. There is such a large inventory that buyers want the best buy on the market. If the house is priced outside its true price range, it may not even get a showing.
Second, if buyers in that smaller pool even make an offer, it’ll be lower than if the property had been priced right in the first place. Buyers compensate for problems with houses in the pricing. The longer a sign is out or a listing is on the MLS, the more likely buyers think something’s wrong with it. Buyers will think they should offer less to compensate for that. They also think they should pay less because when they have to sell it, they might have the same problem selling it.
What if sellers want to list too high with the expectation that they’ll lower the price if it doesn’t sell? In a hot market you may have been able to get away with it, today that’s usually a bad idea. Our present day market demands the correct pricing on a property. Here’s a good analogy: Consider a sale at Dillards. If clothing doesn’t sell, it goes on the sale rack and gets marked down and marked down and finally sells for less than it is worth. That’s the same way people respond to price issues in real estate.Â
If you’re holding on to a number from the peak of the market, before it became a buyers market, it may be hard to let go of that number that could have been! The important thing to remember is that it isn’t the home owner or even the real estate agent that sets the price for the home – the market does.
