Remember...the seller sets the price, but the purchaser determines the value.

The ideal situation is to have the asking price and value be fairly close.

Make yours be the house in the neighborhood that is priced correctly.

VALUE OF A HOME

The answer is ... survey Says!!!!!

PRICE IT RIGHT!!

...it's not what you need to get...

...not what you want to get...

...not what you think it is worth...

...it's not what you have invested in it compared to the guy next door...

But the key is pricing it close to the market value

Most good realtors will be able to tell you what the market value of your home is. The process they use in determining that value is just about what an appraiser goes through for your purchaser's mortgage company. The appraisal may be the determining factor in whether or not a deal goes through. So let's say you get a contract on your house for $250,000. An appraisal is done by the lender and they determine that the market value is only $230,000. A couple of things could happen.

• First of all, the purchaser could probably get out of the deal because it appraises for less than the contract price. Few people want to pay more for a home than it is worth.
• They could decide to go through with it and come up with extra downpayment funds. Or they might negotiate with you to lower the price. This still requires them to pay more, however.
• You could lower the price to the appraised value if the purchaser still wants to buy the house.

Now if your house was on the market closer to the appraised value it may have sold sooner. It's also possible that it could have sold at a higher price (this requires more explanation). The point is that unless someone desperately has to buy a house and doesn't care about the market value, you will not sell for a higher amount than the appraised value. Does it happen? Yes. Is it likely? No!

So when it comes to pricing your home ask a lot of questions about the market value and how it is determined.  And then price it close to that amount.

By now you may be thinking of this as just more real estate agent "baloney". That's ok. It means you won't call me and neither of us will have had to waste the time getting aggravated with one another.  And, I will have been able to get your neighbor's house on the market and sold while yours sits there...overpriced...having made your neighbor's look like a great deal.