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How to set your price
For those that are looking to sell their beautiful Sarasota home, the big question facing them is how much they should ask for when it comes to pricing their home. Every home seller wants to make as much profit as possible, while at the same time, making their home competitive and a fairly quick sell. So, what to do?
The answer is what is called a comparative market analysis. It sounds complicated, but it really isn´t. A comparative market analysis simply takes a look at all the real estate activity in your area for the last three months and looks at where the market has been, where it currently stands and where it´s headed.
The first step can pretty much be done on your own so you can get a ballpark figure on what a good asking price is for your home. By using a combination of the local newspapers, the Internet and simply talking to neighbors, you can find out what similar homes in your area have been selling for over the past three months. You should only take the past three months into consideration since the real estate market changes so much so fast that anything older than three months really doesn´t have much bearing on what is going on now.
Remember that golden rule of Sarasota FL real estate, location, location, location. You should only take homes into account that are within a mile or two of yours, since even a small distance can completely change the value of a home. If your home is in a different school district, closer to the local highway system or closer to better shopping, the value of your home will be higher than an identical property a mile away from all of that.
Once you´ve got a good idea of what you should be asking for, you can head off to your local realtors. A good tip to remember is that you can shop around for realtors just like you can shop around for green beans or a gallon of milk. Each realtor is going to give you a suggested asking price and, if you go see four or five, you´ll notice that most, if not all, are right around the same value. What you need to watch out for is that one realtor who´s suggested asking price for your home is completely out of whack from the rest. While it may be tempting to believe the one person telling you that your home is worth considerably more than what the rest are saying, more than likely, if they are the one dissenting voice out of six, they are most likely incorrect.
There are several other factors that you can take into consideration when trying to determine a good asking price for your home. You should evaluate how long you can last with your home on the market. Are you a super motivated seller that needs to unload their home quickly? If you are, you might want to lower your asking price by a bit to get more attention.
What is the status of your current real estate market? If it´s a sellers market, you might be able to tack on a couple extra thousand to your asking price and still sell in a short amount of time. But if money is tight and it´s looking like a buyers market, you might have to swing the other direction and be willing to ask for less money since its unlikely you´re going to receive a flood of offers.
One final tip, make sure any appraiser or Sarasota real estate agent that comes to look at your home in an effort to determine a good asking price knows about any improvements or equity that you´ve built into the home in the time that you´ve lived there. If there are subtle improvements that might not be readily seen by the naked eye, they can be missed by even the best experts. You don´t want to show these folks around your home and brag the entire time about the moldings in your living room, but a helpful explanation of any major improvements can end up paying off when it comes time to put your house on the market.
Setting the price for your home can be a challenge. There are literally hundreds of different aspects that play into the decision. Make sure you take your time and fully evaluate your choices before you settle on a price.
GBrey | 