Therefore, rather than working off your intuition and gut feeling, you need to do research on how the market works. Consider the following: Marking down is one popular strategy that many sellers eventually resort to. The process can be understood as follows: it is natural that every owner will want to make as much profit as they possibly can through the sale of their house. Therefore, most sellers prefer to quote a first listing price that is considerably higher than the existing market trend in the hopes that they might be able to sell it off for a great price to an undiscerning buyer. When this fails to happen, during the process of negotiation or delays where there is no interest in the overpriced house, the seller will have no choice but to lower their price—probably more than once. Though there is a chance of selling the property for more value if the buyer is oblivious, this strategy is generally unsuccessful. For instance, if a property has not sold within 30 days of listing, then future buyers might be apprehensive, thinking that there could be something wrong with the property. Moreover, once you’ve lowered the price once, some buyers will be inclined to think that—if youwere prepared to lower the price before— they can continue bargaining as much as possible to land a much lower price than you would like. This strategy has a good chance of backfiring and hurting you in the long run. This is one reason why it’s very important that you calculate the first listing price to be in line with market trends and sell your property faster. Starting at a reasonable price might prevent you from having a chance at a windfall, but the odds of pulling that off are slim at best, and if and when you fail, you will find yourself with a house that spends too long on the market, with a history of lowering prices
and a skeptical, opportunistic set of customers. GETTING A COMPARATIVE MARKET ANALYSIS —FREE FROM AN AGENT!
Most home sellers are familiar with the idea of a comparative market analysis. This is a popular tool used to ascertain the real value of a property intended for sale. Comparative market analysis, or CMA, is the process of analyzing the sales deals of homes comparable to yours in the region surrounding it. This analysis is a detailed one, taking into
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