Pricing a house for sale

[Sylvanfan]

So at long last I got enough work done on my house and signed a contract to list it. Now my wife comes to me a day later to cry that I under listed the house. Right now the Edmonton and area market looks to be in a bit of a lull similar to what Calgary had about a year ago after it's big explosion. Plus as you get to June people start going on summer hollidays, realtors go on hollidays and often the market does tend to soften up. Thats my fault though that the house wan't ready till now as I just couldn't hire any help as it was booked, or too expensive. Several houses are on the market here and in the area of the city where I live for very high prices right now, and they're all sitting on the market not moving. Fine if people want to list high and see if they can find some sucker to give them a windfall of cash and move on it's their right.

In my area of St.Albert two weeks ago there wasn't a house for sale for under 500k. This past week a couple came on under that price and one place that was listed for only one week had a price reduction of 15k. That tells me they had zero interest if they're dropping their price that much after one week. Places used to be for sale for a week if that before they sold, now I'm seeing places for sale for over a month, and prices coming down on a few of them, and fairly drastic I might add. Once place first listed at 530, and sold 5 weeks later at 489. So despite these high list prices, the selling prices don't look to be there.

I actually want to sell the house and move, and I'd prefer it's not on the market for 3 months and having people through the house every single day type of thing. So I priced the place right in the range that all comparable houses have sold for since the 1st of May. So although everything around me is listed between 495 to 525 I set my price at 475. Based on price per square foot my house would rate top 3 in terms of price per square foot vs the other houses that sold. House wise mine certainly isnt' the biggest, my basement isn't finished, and our yard isn't as nice as some of these other places listed. Also I did the renovation work and it looks okay, but I'm not a professional carpenter so I'm sure it doesn't look better than a house built in 2005 that came with all the fancy stuff.

Our house hasn't even hit the market officially yet as I didn't want it on until Thursday. So I don't even know if theres much interest yet myself, we really won't know until it's on and we see how many viewings it has. I also don't want to look like some moron who priced it 35k over what I actually sold it for either, and I think a lower price has the potential to get multiple buyers looking to grab what they think is a good deal. Yet my wife has to complain that it's too cheap because the women in her quilting class, or who work with her and live in Sherwood Park where taxes are $200 less a month than St.Albert say it sounds low? Arghh....this type of thing drives me nuts, because I've encouraged her to sit down and go through this stuff. But she says no it's boring and she doens't want to care to understand it. Rant over!

[ken0042]

Have her sit down and watch as many episodes of "Buy Me" on HGTV as she can.

I watch that show just to laugh at people who seem to think that their house will sell at a higher price; even though others aren't.

[Tron_fdc]

Prices are definitely softening right now. The average price in the area that my house is listed in is around $400, and I've seen a few homes now listed in the $380 range that haven't moved. It depends what you want to do. Do you want to sit in it, and pay the mortgage for 3-4 months if it doesn't move? Or do you want to sell it right away and move? To me I've said that I don't need the best price when it comes to selling....just a fair one that compensates me for all the headaches I put up with building or renovating something. It's worth taking a little less (to me) if you can put cash in your pocket right away.

[Sylvanfan]

Yeah, it's not like it was bought as a flipper house either. We bought it less than 2 years ago for 253, and so far with all the renovation materials and some new tools I maybe put $9000 into it, and that includes about $900 worth of tools I bought in the process. Plus we had a comparative market analysis done at the start of April that put the place in the 440 to 445 range that she sat in on and was happy with. Less than two months later I'm listing at 475, and thats not enough because a bunch of people she works with or have a quilt class with say it sounds low? All of which are not currently trying to buy or sell a home, and I doubt they've been analyzing the real estate market around here as intently as I have for the last 6 months. Arghhhhh, drives me nuts!

[Prototype]

Pay the $500 to get it assessed. Make copies, and put them on the counter during the open house. Doubt many people will try and haggle for less than an official assessment.

Then again, people are cheap.

[ken0042]

Are you using a realtor? If so, what does he/she think about how the house is priced.

There is a common misconception that what people see on MLS is what the house will indeed sell for. This is only a good basis for comparison if its like last spring here where houses listed on Thursday were gone by Saturday. Once its on there for 2 weeks; it isn't going to sell for the listing price.

[looooob]

I feel your pain. agree MLS not helpful right now, as in most communities, you are just seeing the stuff that isn't selling as opposed to what sold

we just sold, and used a realtor, in part b/c we wanted confirmation about what comparable places actually SOLD for RECENTLY

like you, we weren't flippers, and like you we wanted a painless deal, as frequent showings would be murder on us. at the same time we needed to get good value out of the house

we sold quickly, and its possible we left a tiny bit of $$ on the table, but the piece of mind was worth it. there is a lot of stale stuff in our neighbourhood, despite it being v desireable, mostly b/c people are wacky on their prices/expectations right now

[mac_gurl]

We also just sold our condo. We had listed it on a Tuesday, and the first few days we had no calls. Friday we dropped our price $8000, which may have been too early in some people's minds, but we had our eye on a place, and wanted the piece of mind that our place was sold. We sold it on monday.

Like looooob said, we may have left some money on the table as well, but we wanted our price to grab the attention of the buyers, as there was quite a few in our building. It seemed to have worked!

[Slava]

We listed and sold within 12 hours a few weeks ago. Our realtor did a phenomenal job, and it was priced properly....we did not try to gouge people and now we aren't stuck leaving for showings and making sure that everything is spotless anymore either!

Another place is listed for about $10k more than us right near us and its been sitting for 3 weeks with no action...price is the reason places sell and don't sell, bottom-line.

[metal_geek]

I always say "The prices you see listed on the MLS are what houses are NOT selling for, cause if they were, they wouldn't be on the MLS"...

Ask your wife how long she wants people comming though her house?... How much is 3 months of "home invasion" worth to her?

That and the fact that the market you sell your house in, in your case is the same one you are buying in, so what "less" you sell yours for is what less you will be buying for.

I've sold and bought several houses now and learned lots along the way, but from my experience the number 1 key is...

Sell before you Buy. Houses are easy to buy hard to sell
________
Medical marijuana strains

[Sylvanfan]

Yeah, I am using a realtor, and he said 469 to 479 was the range of selling properties and there were about 12 properties that he had as comparables. I even compared dollars per square foot and he had seen all the houses that sold and told me the pros and cons of those places vs my place.

Ultimately I went with a realtor because I felt exposing the house to the mls system would result in a quicker sale and the realtor will do a lot of tedious stuff I'd forget. Yes I'll lose out on a quite a few dollars, but than again the motivation of the move isn't money, it's to relocate closer to family and I don't want to lose a couple months of time trying to squeeze an extra 10k. Money is replacable, time isn't. For the most part Comfree houses will sell, but they're generally on the market for a lot more time, and I've talked to a lot of people who say they wouldn't Buy thru Comfree, but would sell that way. Well you can't have a sale unless you have a buyer...

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by metal_geek

Sell before you Buy. Houses are easy to buy hard to sell

Oh man thats another one.....We have to look at houses, have it picked out before this place even sells! When in fact we should wait for the sale, or at least some offers before we start looking too much. I have my pre-approval certificate and that so when we do want to buy we can make an offer and close a deal within hours.

I went to where we want to move and looked at a few places just to get a feel for the market there about a month ago and there was a place she said she really wanted. Of course this was a brand new house that she wanted to replace the carpet in straight away and some other things she didn't like! It was nice, but I felt that it wasn't going to be big enough for what we'd eventually want and by the time I paid all the extra fees this place becomes quite pricey. After whining to me about it and asking me to find a way to buy it and arguing with her why I thought it was a bad idea....she admits about a week ago that maybe we should wait and buy an older place for less that she can change everything in because yeah it doesn't make sense to take out carpet before it's even lived on.

[Crazy Flamer]

Just out of curiosrity, how much are realtor's fees these days?

[Sylvanfan]

Well here the office is 7% on the first 100k and 3% on the balance, so it is a huge chunk of money with todays prices......But to sell my 475 k house will cost just over 18. To sell a place two years ago for under 200 cost me almost 10. So in terms of total % it does go down as the value of the house goes up. IMO it's lower value sales where it really does ding you.

To list with Comfree I think is a $700 fee, but you pay that regardless if the place sells or not. I think in the last 6 months I saw 4 or 5 places start as comfree that ended up being listed with realtors. So I want to sell and I do have a time frame I'd like to adhere too. So I really didn't want to gamble $700 on the idea that I might be able to move it myself if I gave it a month.