You Cant Be Too High When Selling

(You must be tired of hearing the negative reports on the United States housing market by now. It is obvious that the market correction has come faster and harder than originally expected. )

So what now for the home owner who has to sell for any variety of reasons?

The best answer to this question is to not sell and wait a year or two for the market to become more profitable.

But there is hope, if you must sell your property.

Raynor James explains in his article, “The New Home Seller Mentality” posted on ezinearticles.com, how sellers have to change their way of thinking in order to be successful in this current market.

The booming years from about 2000 to 2005 were like a dream for many home sellers and investors. Profits were made within weeks as home values appreciated up to four times their original purchase price.

“Buyers regularly worried about losing out on properties and would happily pay a premium for just about any home. With appreciation rates skyrocketing and interest rates at historic lows, buyers just figured they would make money anyways.”

Now that buyers are no longer lining up in the driveway just to get a glimpse of the open house, sellers must adapt to the new mentality if they even hope to conduct a successful transaction.

“While things may favor buyers at the moment, many sellers are having problems changing their mentality. They are still acting like the market is hot. They figure out the value of their home compared to others in the neighborhood and then list their property for something much higher. After the last five years, it comes as a shock when the home just sits and sits with no offers coming in. If you are having this problem, you need to reset your thought process on how to go about selling your home.”

This means that you are actually going to have to do some work. You have to find out what the current value of your home is (deduct a little from that figure since values decrease every day) and compare that with your surrounding market.

The most important thing to remember is the mentality of buyers. You cannot be the highest priced property in your neighborhood because buyers will have cheaper options.

“If you try to sell at the top of the market for homes in your area, you are going to have problems. Home values are trending down, not up. Buyers also know they should never buy the most expensive home in a neighborhood since it limits their potential appreciation.”

You need to advertise your asking price somewhere in the middle. Even then, you may need to offer some incentives such as paying the first six months of mortgage payments and all the closing costs.

Again, if you don’t like it, don’t try to sell.

But id you want to sell your property, you will need to offer it at the lowest price you ever imagined.

You may get lucky by not budging on your price and get a sale within six months, but chances are it will sit for months at a time and you will eventually have to lower the asking price anyways.

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