Marketing Your Property For All It's Worth Mar. 2014 | Page 4

Step#1
Market Overview & Consultation
Review the big picture and then zoom into the CMA.
The technology that is used in the real estate industry today is
extremely current and effective in helping buyers and sellers navigate
the overall real estate landscape. However, the same thing can’t be
said about the strategies traditionally employed to help you determine
the best price at which to sell your property.

“The original
list-to-sales
price ratio
is 89%, an
average of
$16,210 nation
wide in 2011.”

You see, the same protocol for pricing that has been used for years - a
Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) - is still used today...and using it
“by itself” is literally killing sellers’ ability to maximize the sales price
of their property.
In fact, using a CMA “by itself”, is so detrimental to sellers getting top
dollar, that the average list-to-sales price ratio of a property across
the country is only 89%. That is a full 11% less than the asking price
and worth about $16,210 to the average property seller in 2011.
The inherent problem with a CMA is that it only takes into consideration
the sale of a small sampling of properties in your competitive range,
without considering the reason why those properties may or may not
have sold at a specific price. The condition of the property, loss of job,
dated interior, low curb appeal, staging, foreclosure, short sale, etc can
all create a false sense of value.
What does that mean? If the agent is only using the CMA to
determine how you are going to price your property, they could be
using properties that sold for much less than a property such as yours.
Since the agent picks the comparable properties this could skew the
market data significantly, causing you to lose valuable equity.

The approach we use to help you determine list price is different.
We first review the housing market from a national perspective. We
review interest rates, availablity of financing, and overall i