Thinking about selling your house can be daunting. I like to say it’s a complex and infrequently conducted transaction! What separates a great listing team from others is the ability to provide advice, guidance, and excellence with each step of the process.
Pricing a house properly is critical if our clients want to get the most money and best terms possible.
I’m sometimes envious of my colleagues who sell a lot of newer homes. Pricing homes in neighborhoods where only three models were built just three years ago is pretty easy!
However, at Jill Giese & Associates, we sell a lot of older homes in older neighborhoods.
While we love the character, history, and uniqueness of older homes, pricing them isn’t the easiest! You can’t just look at the last few homes that sold and figure out the average price per square foot and multiply it by your square footage. For one thing, your listed square footage may not even be correct! Homes older than just a few years have to be evaluated using multiple methods. Pricing, by my definition, is determined by evaluating four things: data, history, experience, and gut.
We always start with data.
First, it’s important to know the actual size of your house, because public records are often incorrect, particularly on older houses. We’ll have your house professionally measured and a floor plan created so we have accurate information about its size.
Then we research what other houses of similar size and amenities sold for in the last 90-180 days and how quickly they sold. How similar are those houses to yours? How much active competition is there?
What is happening with the market in our area? Is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market? How is buyer activity in your area? What percentage of the houses on the market are under contract?
The next thing to evaluate when determining price is history.
If you recently had your house listed with another agent and it didn’t sell, then that is a piece of history we
can evaluate when pricing your house. Do we think the issue was preparation, presentation, timing, or marketing? If those things all seem good, then price was likely the key factor that caused it not to sell. Of course we often don’t have that kind of recent history to use in our evaluation.
The third thing we draw on is our experience.
After 20 years working with both sellers and buyers, I know how buyers respond to particular things about homes. Unusual layouts, small living spaces, little or no yard, lots of different flooring, dark rooms, busy streets, and large deferred-maintenance items can all lower the price of a house. Two houses can have the exact same square footage and be $200k different in price! A great listing agent knows how to evaluate both the strengths and challenges of your house.
And finally, there is gut.
Once your house is in its best market-ready condition, we bring all the pieces together: data, history, experience, current buyer activity, active competition, and how the house presents in photos. Then we talk through all of that with you and choose the price we believe gives your house the best chance of selling for the most money possible.
Whether you are planning to sell in the next couple of months or next year, we can help price your house to maximize your return! Give us a call at (208) 327-2127.
Pricing a house properly is critical if our clients want to get the most money and best terms possible.
I’m sometimes envious of my colleagues who sell a lot of newer homes. Pricing homes in neighborhoods where only three models were built just three years ago is pretty easy!
However, at Jill Giese & Associates, we sell a lot of older homes in older neighborhoods.While we love the character, history, and uniqueness of older homes, pricing them isn’t the easiest! You can’t just look at the last few homes that sold and figure out the average price per square foot and multiply it by your square footage. For one thing, your listed square footage may not even be correct! Homes older than just a few years have to be evaluated using multiple methods. Pricing, by my definition, is determined by evaluating four things: data, history, experience, and gut.
We always start with data.
First, it’s important to know the actual size of your house, because public records are often incorrect, particularly on older houses. We’ll have your house professionally measured and a floor plan created so we have accurate information about its size.
Then we research what other houses of similar size and amenities sold for in the last 90-180 days and how quickly they sold. How similar are those houses to yours? How much active competition is there?
What is happening with the market in our area? Is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market? How is buyer activity in your area? What percentage of the houses on the market are under contract?
The next thing to evaluate when determining price is history.
If you recently had your house listed with another agent and it didn’t sell, then that is a piece of history we
can evaluate when pricing your house. Do we think the issue was preparation, presentation, timing, or marketing? If those things all seem good, then price was likely the key factor that caused it not to sell. Of course we often don’t have that kind of recent history to use in our evaluation.The third thing we draw on is our experience.
After 20 years working with both sellers and buyers, I know how buyers respond to particular things about homes. Unusual layouts, small living spaces, little or no yard, lots of different flooring, dark rooms, busy streets, and large deferred-maintenance items can all lower the price of a house. Two houses can have the exact same square footage and be $200k different in price! A great listing agent knows how to evaluate both the strengths and challenges of your house.
And finally, there is gut.
Once your house is in its best market-ready condition, we bring all the pieces together: data, history, experience, current buyer activity, active competition, and how the house presents in photos. Then we talk through all of that with you and choose the price we believe gives your house the best chance of selling for the most money possible.
Whether you are planning to sell in the next couple of months or next year, we can help price your house to maximize your return! Give us a call at (208) 327-2127.
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