The Insider's Guide To Selling Your Home By Owner- Rocio Fausto I | Page 78

There was a young couple that hired a Realtor who listed
their home for $250k. This price was about $10,000 higher than
what the houses in the area were selling for, but because the
Realtor thought their house would sell for an additional $10k, the
young couple listened to him.
The house sat on the market for 6 months with a few
inquiries here and there, but nothing serious. A year went by and
the house was STILL on the market! The young couple
eventually decided they needed a new Realtor.
This new Realtor did drop the price, but only by $5,000. So
the young couple's house is still being listed $5,000 above what
the houses similar to them in the area are selling for.
A year and a half later, the couple and the Realtor, both very
exhausted and weary, listed the house at $210k, and someone paid
CASH for it almost instantly. The market had softened while the
year and a half went by and people weren't paying what houses
were worth any more.
The sad part about this is that if they Realtor would have
just set the correct price in the first place, the house probably
would have sold just as fast and for $30,000 more!
Listing a house above market value will almost always end
badly for you. It's much better to actually start LOWER than
market value because this gets buyers' attention.
Once the attention has been gathered, you will get more than
one buyer interested, and they will probably start a "bidding war".
Basically this means that they will each keep making offers
until they may actually drive the price up to HIGHER than
market value and then you can accept one of their offers!
Wherever there is a market, you can make customers. Lower
the price of your home, create a market, get people interested, and
77