It’s February 14th – Valentine’s Day… other than the obvious excitement (or not) for the day, it is mid February and we see the number of properties listed for sale start to increase. The snapshot below is from a live feed we follow from the MLS.
We can see that there are more new listings than sales (Pending) but the number of Sold properties is climbing. all pointing to an active market.
The story is pretty consistent – well-presented and well-priced homes sell… in every market, all year round. We are moving into the early Spring market when the sales increase and some competition from buyers gives sellers a bit of negotiating room BUT… we still need to make sure that we are not pricing ourselves out of the market.
A recent story: I was working with buyers and we put in an offer that they felt represented market value. We negotiated back and forth a couple times but were not able to come together on a mutually agreeable value. My clients moved on and purchased another home. Four days later, the original sellers came back and said ‘we will accept your offer’. And it was too late.
Listing high to give room to negotiate can be a good strategy but it needs to be properly executed and if it’s too high, more often than not it doesn’t work.
“The average List Price to Sale Price ratio for the last year is 96%.”
Historically, it’s a 97% list to sell ratio but that number has come down in the last year. On an $850,000 home (the average home price in this area), the average sale price will be reduced by $34,000. Leaving more than this on the table will not get you a higher sale price but it will add to the time to sell.
I would rather price the home closer to your desired price and use my negotiation skills to get buyers to increase their offer, than not get an offer to work with.
It’s not a perfect science and at the end of the day, it’s getting to a sale that works for you both in timing and financially.
