People Can Sell for Less if They “Get It”

In my post on Saturday, I talked about people who say that they want to wait for prices to stop falling or for the market to stabilize before they make a decision on a new home.

What most people don’t “get” by this strategy is that their home values likely are falling also.

Many people want their bread buttered on both sides – they want top dollar for their existing home (based loosely on what they could have sold it for a couple of years ago during much stronger market conditions) and they want builders to sell them a new home at the absolute lowest possible price (regardless if it’s even below the builder’s cost).

I heard an interesting conversation recently on a radio talk show where a person who was trying to sell their existing home called in and asked why she was having trouble selling her home at the asking price. The talk show host asked about her experiences in trying to sell her home and then posed a very significant question. She asked the caller if she thought she could sell her home for $2, and she said that she could.

But the question isn’t as silly or as obvious as it might sound. Haven’t we all walked away from various items that after we inspected them we remarked that the potential seller would have to pay us to take them?

The radio host went on to explain that somewhere between where the lady had priced her home and $2 was the price that it would sell at and that the closer it was to $2 the quicker it would sell.

Too many people are holding out for top dollar that approaches what they think they could have received for their home in 2005 or 2006 if they had sold it then, and they have not come to terms with the adjusted value on their home.

Usually it’s not a question of their home not being nice, it’s just that it’s not worth what they think it is.

There’s often an emotional attachment to one’s home and setting an asking price often is based as much on emotion as on market conditions and the actual property.

However, for those people who “get it” and price their existing homes realistically – and for those real estate agents who also “get it” and recommend such pricing – they’ll find that they can sell their present home and move on to their next one while those prices are still relatively attractive also.