Everyone wants to get the most amount of money for their home when they put it on the market.  There are several factors that affect the price of your home and ultimately, what you can get for it.  The main two factors that an owner has control over is the price and condition of the home.  My #1 tip for sellers deals with the price:  Don’t overvalue your home!

Take a look at the graph below.  It illustrates the importance of not overpricing your home.  The higher you are above market value, the less percentage of buyers you will have looking at your property.  If you are above the market you will be seen by a buyer as an overpriced home.  How will you know this?  You won’t have many showings or you will have showings but no offers.  You may end up having to reduce your price several times and to the buyer, they may wonder what’s wrong with it or the buyer’s that would have been interested have already moved on.

On the flip side, if you are significantly underpriced, you may have a lot of showings but buyers end up thinking the same thing…”what’s wrong with it?”.  Your potential buyers might also be missing your property if they are looking in a slightly higher price range.  Price ranges(brackets) are always something to keep in mind when pricing your home.  Typically buyers, and their agents, will search in a price range like $200,000-$250,000.  Pricing slightly above or below the price range can have an impact on the sale of your property so it’s important to be strategic about it.

Ideally, you want to be in that “sweet spot” and priced at market value.  This will result in attracting buyers, generating lots of showings and producing offers for your home. 

When it comes to pricing, however, I think being an overpriced home is much more of a detriment than being underpriced.  Being substantially underpriced is not good but even being slightly below market value can sometimes result in an “auction-type” event where there is a bidding war.  A lot of times, the property sells for over market value in that situation.  Therefore, my #1 tip is to not overprice your home.  Research the competition, hire an agent who can dive into the numbers and figure out where the market is and where it is headed and price it right.