When selling your home, the first month is highly critical. During those first 30 days, your home has that new listing “buzz” and will likely have an increased number of showings compared to a home that has been sitting on the market. Anxious buyers who await new listings and showings at this point have more than likely seen the available homes on the market, and if they saw what they like by now they would’ve already submitted an offer. As with anything, there is always a “newness” a listing brings, but after 30 days, it wears off. So how do you avoid a lengthy duration for sale?

Pricing Factors

The key factor is competitive pricing. Pricing must be right from the start. A tendency of home sellers is they set the price too high, then chase the market backward. However, what happens is any excitement that can be generated during the first 30 days is missed. As with marketing any product, proper pricing is what attracts buyers. Wouldn’t you rather receive multiple offers to choose from and give you optimal terms and potentially drive the price upwards? To help with this, let’s look at a phrase home sellers tend to deviate from its true definition: Fair Market Value.

Fair market value is what a buyer is willing to pay, and what a seller is willing to accept in a current market. Fair market value doesn’t factor what the home seller paid for the home, what friends or neighbors say you can list your home for, or what a home seller needs to receive. Buyers make educated pricing decisions on data of what has recently sold within your surrounding area that is comparable to your home.

In short, to avoid having your home listed past 30 days, it comes down to pricing. To begin deciding on a price, the first step is, to begin with surveying your surrounding real estate market. Find comparable homes to your home that have sold within the last 6 months.  What are homes selling for?  Are the prices heading north or south? How many days was that home on the market before selling? Did they have a price reduction? Do those homes have similar features and square footage? Are there similar homes currently listed and at what price?

This is a lot of information to accumulate and could take you hours. To reduce hours into minutes and compile all of the data for you, click the green What’s My Home Worth Button at the bottom of this page to receive your FREE, no obligation Comparative Market Analysis. This will give you the relevant data you need to make an educated estimate of what your home will sell for in today’s market.

Zestimate

Whether you are selling your home or purchasing a home, chances are you have checked the “Zestimate.” How accurate is Zillow’s Zestimate? Well, Sometimes they may be within close proximity, and others they can be off between 5%-20%. That is a pretty significant range. Example, let’s say your home’s worth is $500,000. Zillow can report a “Zestimate” off between 5%-20%. That equates your “Zestimate” impacting your home’s value by $25,000-$100,000.

If you think your home may be undervalued on Zillow, there is a way to claim your home. This will allow you to verify that Zillow is reporting accurate information on your home and give you the opportunity to update your home facts. Brooklyn Carras highly advises her clients taking this step before listing their home. Buyers will be checking that “Zestimate” and you will want your home as close to true value & the listing price as possible. If you need help accurately calculating your homes worth click here.

Of course, if you need help with pricing, updating your home on Zillow or how Brooklyn Carras will creatively market your home, you can contact Brooklyn Carras at 818-259-0060.