Pricing Your Property (Pricing Strategy)

Pricing your property is the single-most important element of a successful sale. Over-priced listings do not sell. Furthermore, by overpricing your property, you ultimately end up helping to sell surrounding properties that are priced to market value.

Look around at similar properties for sale in your surrounding area and price yours in that range. Of course, the interior and exterior condition will make a large difference. For example, if you've remodeled recently or have added square footage, the price will naturally increase. But be very careful, improvements don't always increase the value of the property exponentially. In-fact, most often they do not increase the value of the property by very much. Keep these things in mind when considering where to price your property.

Below are ten very important questions to ask yourself prior to pricing your property:

• Is the local market rising, falling or staying even?
• Is my opinion of value based on actual neighborhood sale prices within the past three months?
• How many properties in the area are competing against mine right now?
• Have any neighborhood properties been on the market too long? If yes? Why? Price, condition, other?
• Is my property consistent with larger or smaller properties that have sold in the surrounding area?
• Are my financial needs influencing my asking price?
• Is my original purchase price influencing my asking price?
• Am I willing to price it right and stand firm?
• What will the ramifications be if I price the property too high?
• Are the benefits of moving important enough to price my property at market value?

Spend time researching the current market, the area and make sure to price it right!

Brian Serpone can be reached in the Harwich office of Today Real Estate at 508-568-8104.