The Price You Want vs. the Price the Market Will Support

If you are selling your home, I assume you want to get as much for it as you reasonably can.

I do too.

That is worth saying because sometimes conversations about price can start to feel like the seller and the real estate agent are on opposite sides. The seller wants more. The agent is telling them to lower the price.

That is not how I see my job.

When I list your home, I am working for you. I want a strong sale price. I want good terms. I want you to walk away from closing feeling like we handled the sale well.

But there is one thing neither of us gets to control: the market.

We Can Set the Asking Price, but We Cannot Set the Market

Before a home goes on the market, we look at comparable sales, current competition, condition, location, features and what buyers have been doing.

That gives us a starting point.

But once your home is listed, we start getting new information.

Are buyers viewing the home online?

Are they saving it?

Are we getting showings?

What are buyers and their agents saying after those showings?

Are similar homes going under contract while ours remains available?

Are we receiving offers?

Those things matter because buyers are giving us information.

Sometimes that information confirms our original pricing. Great. We stay the course.

Sometimes it tells us something needs to change.

A Price Reduction Is Not the Goal

I do not list a house hoping to reduce the price later.

The goal is to position the home well from the beginning and get the strongest result the market will support.

But there is a danger in becoming more committed to our original number than we are to what the market is actually telling us.

Maybe we thought the home would bring $450,000.

Maybe the seller really needs $450,000.

Maybe I can make a good case for why the house should be worth $450,000.

But if qualified buyers consistently compare it with the other choices available and will not pay $450,000, eventually we have to deal with that information.

That does not mean the seller was foolish.

It does not mean the agent was necessarily wrong.

It means we have more information today than we had when we started.

Time on the Market Matters

This is the part sellers sometimes underestimate.

A home is usually most interesting to buyers when it first hits the market. It is new. Buyers who have been watching that price range notice it. Agents with matching clients see it.

If those buyers decide the price does not make sense compared with their other choices, many move on.

We can reduce the price later, but we cannot make the listing brand-new again.

And as days on market accumulate, buyers may start asking different questions.

Why hasn’t it sold?

Has something changed?

How negotiable is the seller?

That is why holding onto a price that the market is not supporting can eventually work against the very thing we were trying to accomplish: getting the seller the best possible price.

My Job Is to Help You Make the Decision

I do not believe in beating sellers up over price.

It is your house. It is your money. Ultimately, the decisions are yours.

My responsibility is to give you the best information I have and tell you what I am seeing, even when that conversation is uncomfortable.

If the market is supporting our price, I will tell you that.

If I think we need more time, I will tell you that.

If the marketing, condition or showing availability is part of the problem, we need to address that instead of automatically blaming the price.

And if the evidence is telling me buyers are not seeing the same value we hoped they would, I need to tell you that too.

That is not working against you.

That is part of working for you.

Nobody can promise exactly what a buyer will pay for a house. What we can do is prepare well, price thoughtfully, market the home well and then pay attention.

The goal is not to prove that our original number was right.

The goal is to get your house sold on the best terms the market will give us.

If you are thinking about selling and want to know what buyers are actually paying for homes like yours, I would be glad to look at the numbers with you. Visit rob-hurt.com to schedule a conversation.