What and What Not to do When Pricing Your Home for Sale

By Emilio DiSpirito, Top Selling Listing Realtor

It’s simple, homeowners want the highest sales price when selling their home. Not so much to ask right? Right! So, why do so many fall short of netting much less than they should when selling their home, investment or land?! That is also simple; inadequate or poor preparation and looking in the wrong areas when pricing their home! Here are a short list of do’s and don’ts in order to price your home correctly, to allow for a feeding frenzy of buyers and offers at or above list price! 

When Pricing Your Home, Don’t Do This!

1.) Reference overpriced active homes for sale. 

2.) Go outside of 1-mile radius. Bank appraisers will not usually use homes more than a mile away unless in an extremely rural area. 

3.) Go over 6 months out. Appraisers will usually not look at homes sold more than 6 months back. 

4.) Depend on automated values from national websites. These are often off between 7% to 14%. In some cases, even more extreme. 

5.) Throw out a price you want! You may be leaving some serious cash on the table or maybe pricing your home way out of the ballpark, leaving your home overpriced and your listing catching dust! 

6.) The Realtor with the “best price”. Realtors do not set the price! The market does! Always go with the Realtor who is an expert in your specific market and who shows you actual data. 

7.) Your neighbor, a contractor, friend, family member or anyone else who is not a full time, licensed local Real Estate Agent or Residential Real Estate Appraiser. 

8.) Overprice your home to “leave room for negotiations”. This almost never works and leaves buyers pricing your home down! 

Schedule Your FREE Seller Consultation with a Top Rhode Island Realtor in Your Market Here! 

When Pricing Your Home, Do This!

1.) Find a Realtor who is in the top 5% for sales in your market. This agent should know the market very well. 

2.) Take the emotions out of setting your homes price and know that when you price a home to fair market value (data-driven result), you are setting yourself up for heavy online activity which translates to buyer foot traffic and a potential bid war on your home. 

3.) Make sure that pending and sold comparables are used. Active homes are yet to be demanded by buyers and are not an accurate representation of what your home is worth. A bank appraiser will only use pending with a heavier emphasis on sold properties. 

4.) Do a pre-list home inspection report to determine the amount of work your home needs. Do what you can to ensure that buyers can finance your home with all of the available programs and work with your real estate agent to eliminate the costly red flag items when you can. If you cannot afford to do the work, ask your agent if they have a company that can do the work first and get paid at closing from proceeds. If that is not an option, disclose all of the defects and price your home accordingly by reducing the cost from the “market price”. 

For additional tips or to schedule a call with Emilio DiSpirito, text 401-359-2338 or email [email protected] now!  Also, go to:  www.DiSpiritoTeam.com