A home sale is not a garage sale, where sellers and buyers haggle over price. In fact, it's the price of the home that determines whether any particular buyer will even take the time to see it. If the price it too high compared to similar homes, fewer real buyers will show up, meaning you won’t have anyone to haggle with.
Can you guess what the number one criterion that ALL buyers search on the MLS? Yep! Price... What happens when you list your three-bedroom, two-bathroom home is that it will come up in the searches of agents looking for four bedroom three bath homes or other homes that are far nicer, newer, larger and with more amenities.
Your house will stick out like the proverbial sore thumb and the chances are good that you will get fewer buyers scheduling to see your beautiful home. We'll likely be limited “drive-bys” only... We have seen this for decades, no matter the nature of our local real estate market.
What comes next?? The listing then sits on the market until you decide it’s time to get realistic about the price. Unfortunately, it might be too late. Other agents and homebuyers are suspicious about homes that linger on the market and that listing becomes stale... ESPECIALLY in a market where there are very few available homes on the MLS.
Put yourself in a buyer’s or agent’s shoes. When searching for homes, what if the same home keeps coming up over the course of a month or two on their Auto Emails? You’d become suspicious, right?? You'll automatically wonder what’s wrong with the house since nobody else seems interested it... You're kind of stuck.
The first week a home is on the market is when your home will be the most popular and receive the most traffic. If it’s overpriced, not only will viewings be limited, but you’ll lose the most valuable marketing period. And, you'll never be able to duplicate the honeymoon period, even if you change the asking price a few weeks later.
The Salt Lake Valley real estate market is changing on a weekly basis. You may not realize that over the past 5 months, mortgage interest rates rose and more listings have been overpriced from the beginning and they sit on the MLS.
That's caused a slight shift for buyers: their affordability has decreased with a rise in the interest rates and they have a few more homes to look at. Pricing your home correctly from DAY 1 could push the price UP with multiple offers... that's our goal!!
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