Soft Market Doesn’t Always Mean A Lower Price

As a real estate marketer, part of my job is to assist sellers with setting a list price for their property. While I might suggest one price - the seller often wants to set it at a higher price.

Sometimes the price is so high that I will not take the listing.

I could easily post many examples of how sellers and their unreasonable list prices have caused their properties to languish on the market for months… even years… but that is not the purpose of this article.

No, this time it’s to say that I was wrong.

A client of mine had a condo in Kennesaw that I helped him purchase for $179,000 back in 2004. The community was relatively new at that time, and consisted of twenty units. The highest sales price of any of the comparable units was $193,000 for a unit that sold shortly after my client purchased his. Since then, the market softened and comparable units have sold for as little as $175,500.

When asked to assist him, I analyzed the market and saw that only one comparable unit was for sale… and that unit had an initial list price of $192,900 and had been on the market since May 2006. It was under contract when I listing my client’s unit, and eventually sold for 194,900 with the seller paying $4830 in closing costs.

Since this comparable unit was in good condition, it seemed unreasonable to me that we could expect a much higher sales price - especially since the comparable had been on the market for so long. So when my client wanted to start with a list price of $210,000 - I cringed.

Normally, I would have simply passed on the listing… but since this was a previous client - I agreed to give it my best shot. Besides, he agreed to lower the price if we didn’t get any offers in quick order.

So… I went to work with getting the marketing rolling - including building one of my single property websites. We got some good activity, and in a few weeks we had an offer.

The buyer found the website as a virtual tour on one of the many websites that our tours link to… and fell in love with the home. By the time she was able to view the property in person - she felt like she was already home. How do I know this? Because at the closing I asked her… and she told me so.

Her initial offer was not very impressive… but we held firm on our price. By the time all was said and done, my client paid her closing costs of $6500 and sold his unit for full price at $210,000.

So the moral of the story is that the real estate agent is not always right - and that a good marketing effort will get you top dollar… even in a buyer’s market.