It’s tough being a listing agent.
No matter how good of a job you do, the margin for error is huge. If you sell the house too fast, the perception is that you blew it on the price and “cost your seller money.”
On the other hand, if the house takes too long to sell, well, we all know what happens then. We didn’t live up to our promises and we disappointed our seller.
I just had a listing go under contract with multiple offers. The sellers needed to move, and for the time of season and the recent media attention, it was an aggressive but fair asking price.
In the end, they sold it in a few days for $3,000 over asking and were very happy. The neighbours, on the other hand, had a bad case of “Seller Regret”! Without knowing all the facts, they felt the home was priced low.
Perhaps I’ll start warning my sellers up front about what I call “Seller’s Regret.” 🙂
Here’s the thing. In today’s market, almost every seller will experience Seller’s Regret. But it’s their choice (sort of) which type of Seller’s Regret they’ll experience.
Type 1:
“Darn! We underpriced our home! We should have priced it higher! That lousy Realtor – he cost us money!”
Type 2:
“Darn! I wish we’d listened to our Realtor upfront. We should have made the repairs, staged it right away and priced it lower. Now, five months later, our listing is stale, we’ve paid $9,000 more of interest in our mortgage and are fair game for low-ball offers, if we get any at all. Let’s look into renting it out.”
If a seller is lucky enough to experience Type 1, they may never know the pain and angst of Type 2 and he may always wonder if he should have/could have priced it higher.
If a seller is lucky enough to experience Type 1, he may never know the pain and angst of Type 2 and he may always wonder if he should have/could have priced it higher.
And that’s okay — pricing homes is an art and, in most markets, there is no exact, perfect price for a home.
If you’d like to know the three most important things that must be in place in order to sell your home, send an email over to chuck (at) livinginmilton.com with the subject line “Three keys to selling”.
