Home Selling Strategy

home selling strategy
What’s a Seller’s Market?

There is an idiom that says that the “Map is not the territory.”  One interpretation is that you shouldn’t confuse theory with reality.  And in real estate, that means you shouldn’t confuse the strategy with the market cycle. And as this seller market cycle continue, some home sellers are confusing it as the implementation of a brilliant home selling strategy.

Low home sale inventory seems to be the new normal since the Great Recession.  Home owners are staying in their homes longer, and first-time home buyers are putting off buying a home to save money.  And the current market cycle highlights how pent-up home buyer demand can drive home prices.  In this market, appropriately priced homes sell fast, usually within a week.  Many times, homes will get multiple offers and sell over list price.  The truth is that current conditions are a manifestation of the market.  However, home sellers come to expect homes to sell in a week for over list price, even when the market changes.  The answer to a successful sale in any market is to create a home selling strategy. 

Regardless of the housing market conditions, you need a home selling strategy (also known as a marketing strategy) to sell your home.  The marketing strategy will determine the best way to position your home to get your home sold in an expedient way at the best price.  It’s a map that you create to get you to a successful closing. 

Your home selling strategy research should be focused on your neighborhood, as well as competing neighborhoods.  Many begin with a comparative market analysis (or CMA).  A CMA is a process of determining a potential home sale price by evaluating neighborhood sales of similar homes in style, size, and age.  In a buyer’s market, when homes are taking longer to sell, you should get a 30-60-90 day analysis to determine the trend of sale price and days on market.  In a seller’s market, the trend is usually where homes sell relatively quickly.  However, the CMA can assist in understanding pricing trends.

One of the interesting aspects of a detailed CMA is the comparisons of characteristics and features between your home and other homes that recently sold.  From the analysis you can begin to see what makes your home stand out from the others.  You may discover your home has more or less amenities than other neighborhood homes, which should be considered in your pricing strategy.

List price is everything.  Your home sale strategy hinges on pricing your home correctly.  Regardless of market conditions, if the house is prices too high it will likely take longer to sell (relative to the average time on market).  Homes that are prices correctly tend to sell faster than over priced homes.  Many home sellers trying to reap “top dollar” have made the mistake of setting the list price too high expecting a home buyer to make an offer.  The truth is that buyers are savvy and will likely skip the over priced homes.  Your strategy, no matter how clever, can’t overcome overpricing.

Preparing your home should also be part of your strategy.  Decluttering and deep cleaning is a must for all home sales.  Whether or not you live in the home, you should consider staging. “Home staging” is a term that is used to describe the process of making your home as appealing as possible to potential home buyers to sell the house quickly. This may include rearranging and/or removing furniture.  Some home sellers rent trendy furniture to replace their own items. 

By Dan Krell
Copyright © 2021

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Disclaimer. This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Readers should not rely solely on the information contained herein, as it does not purport to be comprehensive or render specific advice. Readers should consult with an attorney regarding local real estate laws and customs as they vary by state and jurisdiction. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws.

Price is Everything

Price is everything
Home owner equity

Home sellers want to get top dollar, and home buyers want value.  This is a hard to truth to acknowledge, but regardless of your home’s condition, location, etc. it all comes down to the home sale price.  Don’t just take my word on it. There’s plenty of peer reviewed research on the topic.  For example, Han and Strange’s study that demonstrates how home price effects home buyers’ response and motivation to visit and/or make an offer on your home (What is the Role of the Asking Price for a House?; Journal of Urban Economics; Volume 93, May 2016, P115-130).  The conclusion indicated that list prices that are consistent with neighborhood values (not overpriced) maximize home buyer engagement.  Price is everything .

The “price is everything” concept applies to any housing market.  It applies when the market is slow, and even when the market is doing well.  Take for example this year, when it seemed as if any home that come on the market sold quickly. However, there’s a caveat: homes that were priced correctly sold quickly.  Homes that were overpriced took much longer to sell.  For those overpriced homes that sold, they sold for less than original list price. 

As home prices continue to appreciate, home sellers are eager to push the envelope when setting their list price.  But home buyers are savvy and won’t overpay for a home, so creating a realistic pricing strategy is key to your home sale success.  Things to consider include your home’s condition, your local market, and your competition.

The main tool to help you decide on a list price is the CMA (comparative market analysis), which you can get from your agent.  The CMA is not an appraisal, but it is a snapshot of market activity for similar homes in your market area.  The CMA can show how homes like yours (that are similar in size, style, age and condition) sell by price and days on market.  Typically, the CMA is broken down into 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month segments to show how home sales are trending.  Compare active homes to homes that sold as well as those that didn’t sell for sale price and days-on-market).  Also be aware of any seller concession, which can affect your net sale.  Finally keep track of neighborhood active listings, this is your competition that can also help you modulate your price if needed.

To help sellers understand how their homes compare to the competition, I used to advise clients to visit neighborhood open houses.  This was helpful in understanding how to prepare their homes by comparing the homes’ condition and features.  Although visiting open houses may not be practical for you these days, technology makes it easy to see the interior of home via HD pictures, virtual tours and floor plans. 

Another pricing strategy that many home sellers use to get more buyer traffic is “just-below” pricing.  Just-below pricing is reducing your decided list price below the rounded number.  For example, if your list price is $450,000, the just-below price might be $449,900. This strategy was demonstrated through research by Beracha and Seiler (The Effect of Pricing Strategy on Home Selection and Transaction Prices: An Investigation of the Left-Most Digit Effect; Journal of Housing Research; 2015; Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.147-161).  Just-below pricing works best the list price is rounded down to the nearest hundred or thousand.

Original published at https://dankrell.com/blog/2020/12/20/price-is-everything/

By Dan Krell
Copyright © 2020

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Disclaimer. This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Readers should not rely solely on the information contained herein, as it does not purport to be comprehensive or render specific advice. Readers should consult with an attorney regarding local real estate laws and customs as they vary by state and jurisdiction. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws.

About Your List Price

list price
Where are home buyers finding their homes?
(infographic from nar.realtor)

When you’re selling a home, a consequential decision is your list price and pricing strategy.  Deciding on your price can be confusing because, sometimes, what you hear from the media is not exactly what your real estate agent is telling you.  Additionally, making matters worse is hearing disparate information from different real estate agents.

For example, your home’s market value is not the same as a list or sale price.  It’s a common mistake to assume that your home will sell for “market value.”  However, market value is an appraisal term that describes a probable price that a home buyer would pay in any given market.  Market value can vary depending on the scope and purpose of the appraisal.  Knowing the “market value” for your home can build up expectations for your sale that may not be realized.  However, until you do an analysis of comparables and market conditions, you won’t have a realistic list price. 

Adding to the confusion is hearing that your list price may not necessarily be the sale price.  In a buyer’s market, your sale price could be less than list price.  In a seller’s market, your sale price could be more than list price.

There’s definitely a science when deciding on a list price, where you can work with real numbers.  Unfortunately, the “science” of home pricing is inexact.  Determining a list price is much like baking cookies.  The end result is similar, but expert bakers have their own recipe.  So, although listing agents don’t always agree, there’s some commonality in determining a list price.  And much like baking, some pricing “recipes” are better than others.

Part of the inexact science of home pricing is creating a market analysis.  The market analysis will guide you in deciding a list price by providing a price range.  Although there are basic guidelines for collecting data, agents don’t always agree on the process.  However, once you pinned down a price range, then you can decide your pricing strategy by considering your selling motivation, the economy, and housing market conditions.

Basically, the market analysis is deciding which recent sales are most similar to your home.  The best comparables are homes in your neighborhood that sold in the previous three to six months.  The homes in your neighborhood are likely very similar to yours, and recent sales are an indicator of market conditions.  However, it’s common to go outside your neighborhood when similar neighborhood sales are not available.  These comparables provide a price range.  The more adjustments made to comparable sales, the less exact your analysis.

Besides looking at recent sales, you should also look at neighborhood homes that are actively on the market.  Active home sales are your competition.  These sales can reveal additional market conditions by comparing price and days on market with your sale comparables.  You should also consider recent withdrawn and expired sales because they provide insight about pricing strategies that may not work in the current market. 

Your pricing strategy is how you decide to position your home in the market.  Your goal is to sell for top dollar and least amount of time on market.  In determining your pricing strategy, you need to consider your competition, as well as your motivation, economy, and housing market conditions.  Also remember that the list price may have to be adjusted as days on market accrue, while keeping an eye on your competition.

Original article is published at https://dankrell.com/blog/2020/02/14/about-your-list-price/

By Dan Krell
Copyright© 2020

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Disclaimer. This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Readers should not rely solely on the information contained herein, as it does not purport to be comprehensive or render specific advice. Readers should consult with an attorney regarding local real estate laws and customs as they vary by state and jurisdiction. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws.

Holiday Home Selling

holiday home selling
Home staging during the holidays (infgraphic from nar.realtor).

Conventional real estate wisdom used to be that timing the market was the key to listing your home for sale.  Most home sellers tried to aim for the spring and early summer months to sell their homes.  In fact, June continues to be when most settlements occur.  However, selling strategies have changed over the last few years such that home sellers are confidently listing in the fall.  Many also hold nothing back to sell during the winter months.  But how about holiday home selling?

The holiday season is typically when the real estate industry slows to a crawl.  But it doesn’t mean that the housing market is closed!  Consider that there were 658 Montgomery County MLS listed homes that went under contract since the beginning of November.  This confirms that active home buyers are constantly searching for homes, and will certainly visit houses that are available during the holiday season.  The only obstacle for home buyers (and your home sale) is severe weather.  

Holiday home selling is not for everyone. If you have not yet listed your home for sale, you may consider waiting to list after Thanksgiving.  Or you may just decide to wait until the new year.  Your listing strategy should be based on your lifestyle.  Although the holiday season is often synonymous with joy and good cheer, many experience increased stress during this time.  If the holidays are a hectic time for you, the thought of the additional stress of selling your home may sway you to waiting the holidays out.  Keep in mind that, like any other time of the year, you still have to prepare your home for sale (which includes decluttering, repairs and staging).

If your home is already listed for sale, you have some choices.  It used to be the rule that if your home was still on the market approaching Thanksgiving that the listing would be pulled from the MLS until spring.  And as of the November 1st, 181 county homes have been pulled off the MLS.  You may decide to do the same. 

But keeping your home on the market during the holiday season is no longer taboo.  As I mentioned earlier, conventional wisdom is passé.  Some home sellers see an opportunity to sell during the holiday season as many homes come of the market.  Consider that since November 1st, there were 444 new MLS listings.  There are also another 46 homes currently listed as “coming soon.”

Obviously, if your home is vacant it’s easy to show.  However, you should still visit the home weekly to make sure it is clean and shows well.  But if you’re selling the home where you reside during the holiday season, you may want to think about showings and staging.  Talk to your agent about requiring home buyer appointments to view the home so you don’t have inopportune surprise visitors.  This will give you the flexibility and emotional space to have your home show its best while you enjoy the holidays.

What about holiday decorations and holiday home selling staging?  According to Melissa Dittmann Tracey, writing for the NAR blog (Should You Stage Homes for the Holidays?; nar.realtor; December 19, 2011), most real estate professionals tell their clients to stage with “holiday-spirit and glow.”  Although thirty-seven percent of professionals indicated that they advised holiday staging without religious decorations, twenty-eight percent advised their clients to also include their religious decorations.  Only eight percent of professionals surveyed advised to do generic staging without any holiday decorations.

Original article is published at https://dankrell.com/blog/2019/11/28/holiday-home-selling/

By Dan Krell
Copyright© 2019

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Disclaimer. This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Readers should not rely solely on the information contained herein, as it does not purport to be comprehensive or render specific advice. Readers should consult with an attorney regarding local real estate laws and customs as they vary by state and jurisdiction. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws.

How to Market a Home Sale

Some homes seem to sell themselves while others need help.  If your home needs help, understand that effective use of marketing tools can increase your home’s appeal, as well as communicate your home’s value to sell it faster and for more money.  Home sale marketing tools have been used ever since real estate brokerage began.  Although marketing tools come and go, some have stood the test of time.  So you might be wondering how to market a home sale…

How to market a home sale according to a Realtor

how to market a home sale
Housing market supply and demand (infographic from keepingcurrentmatters,com)

If you ask your Realtor how to market a home sale, they may tell you about open houses, print ads, and the internet.

Probably one of the most effective marketing tools an agent has is the open house.  Unfortunately, the open house is under-used, as well as often misused for the agent’s personal gain.  Although the open house routine has changed, brokers have been holding open houses for over one-hundred years.  The open house is the ideal time to communicate directly with home buyers and their agents about your home’s appeal and value.  Try to avoid the use of open house gimmicks (such as cook-outs and carnivals) because they detract from the home sale message.  Furthermore, make sure your agent is focused on selling your home during the open house, instead of focusing on signing-up new clients.

Although not as prevalent today, print advertising was a home marketing staple for over a century.  Today, the majority of home buyers search for homes online, so it’s not likely that a print ad will have a wide audience.  However, agents will uses post cards and door hangers to announce their new listing. Nonetheless, print advertising is still used to market niche homes and agent self-promotion. 

You might be wondering how to market a home sale online? Internet and digital marketing is the most widely used form of advertising today.  Internet marketing is easy because the MLS syndicates your home listing across numerous websites automatically!  Although the syndication is automatic, your agent still needs to check how the listing appears.  If the listing has incorrect information, it needs to be fixed or can hamper results. 

There are a variety of other internet advertising opportunities, including a dedicated webpage, pay-per-click, and video.  However, results, if any, may be limited if not used effectively. 

One of the most important marketing tools to relay your home’s appeal and value is the camera.  Technological advances in MLS feeds and digital photography now allow home buyers to see many pictures of your home and its surroundings in crystal clear clarity.  However, don’t solely rely on new photo technologies for virtual tours, as the viewing ability may be limited.

Virtual reality (VR) is a cutting-edge tech being touted for virtual tours.  Let alone that most home buyers don’t own a VR device, many buyers are likely to search homes when wearing a VR device is not appropriate, such as at work or on the metro.  Even though VR marketing sounds cool, it’s reach is still very limited.

Although VR is yet to be an effective tool, augmented reality such as 3D virtual tours are coming of age.  Although there are still limitations, updated internet browsers, broadband, and new 5G allow home buyers to view your home as a 3D model.

The basics.

Regardless of what real estate agents will tell you, the best marketing tools for your home are the list price, your home’s condition, and its location.  However, a high list price, poor condition and/or location can be helped by your agent’s marketing tools.  Effective marketing tools can also help increase your home’s appeal and communicate the home’s value.  But ultimately, the nitty-gritty of selling your home depends on your agent’s savvy, ability to facilitate an offer, and negotiate a price.

Original article is published at https://dankrell.com/blog/2019/10/15/how-to-market-a-home-sale/

By Dan Krell
Copyright© 2019

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Disclaimer. This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Readers should not rely solely on the information contained herein, as it does not purport to be comprehensive or render specific advice. Readers should consult with an attorney regarding local real estate laws and customs as they vary by state and jurisdiction. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws.