Determining the right price for your home is complicated. It’s a balancing act. You don’t want to price so low that you are leaving money on the table, but you can’t go so high that would-be buyers are turned off. Pricing your home is part art, part science, and part psychology.  It is also the most important part of the entire sales process.

If you get it right, your home will sell quickly at a price that pleases you. But an overpriced home may cause buyers to simply wait till you lower the price or worse — they will move on quickly.  Remember, the list price of your home is not necessarily the sale price. The list price of your home is designed to generate showings, and produce offers. It usually takes into account some negotiation.

The critical time to attract buyers is the first 2-3 weeks of listing your property. If buyers perceive good value, you may receive multiple offers. If your house is not well-priced, you will lose showings.

So, how to master the art of pricing our home?  Here are five strategies you may find helpful:

1. Price your home based on facts not emotion. Don’t assume that the buyer is willing to pay a premium for your years of happy memories. Do not compare the price of your house with a price your neighbor got a few years ago. Markets change quickly by season and by year. Buyers are able to do their own research, and decide how much your home is worth by deciding what they’re willing to pay for it.  

• Determine the appraisal value. The most valuable marker for the price of your home is the appraisal value. A lender will set the appraisal value based on comparable sales within the last 6 to 12 months within a half a mile to mile radius. This will give you a valuable indicator of the value of your own home.

• Package your home for sale. Your pool of buyers today may be very different from the buyer pool you were in when you bought your home. Today’s new young buyers, for example, are HGTV-savvy and have different expectations. So, be prepared to take your agent’s advice. They usually recommend that you bring your home into the best possible marketable shape by renovating, repairing, decluttering, and upgrading. The size, condition, and finishes will all influence the pricing.

• Make it easy for buyers to make an offer. Sellers wonder why buyers don’t simply “make an offer.” Psychologically, if buyers feel the asking price is too far removed from what they are willing to pay they often do not want to insult the seller with a low-ball offer. They can also be reluctant to engage in a long and difficult negotiation process with a seller they perceive as being unrealistic and unmotivated. Buyers always have an eye on future resale and do not want to feel they overpaid. Pricing slightly below your competition can make your home stand out from the noise and reduce your days on market.

• Don’t go at it alone. Bring in the professionals! Hire an outstanding local agent whose full-time job it is to track and analyze the market. The price you may want for your home has nothing to do with what it is actually worth on the open market. Your realtor is on your team! She is your best advocate. She will perform up-to-date quantitative analysis in order to make a realistic pricing recommendation to sell your home quickly for the best possible price.

Call Fiona Dogan at 914-414-5147 for more information on pricing or selling your home!

Selling a loved one’s home is a task many of us will face in our lifetime. Whatever the circumstances — you may be helping your parents transition to senior living, or handling their estate after death — the responsibility may be challenging.

To start, the sale of a childhood home triggers emotions and memories that would not be true of another home. Those pencil marks on the wall show how much you grew year to year; the scratch in the hardwood floor reminds you of the time you played hockey in the dining room. Plus, you may be emotionally drained because of the circumstances, and the real estate process can add to that stress.

But help is on the way! Working with an experienced real estate professional can help bring peace of mind and ease the stress of selling your parent’s home.

Four Tips for Selling Your Parent’s Home

1. Gather important documents. You may have already had the conversation with your parents about important papers related to their home, including insurance documents, homeowner’s policy, and bank accounts. If not, be prepared to gather everything you need and put it in one place. You may want to change mail delivery to your home to ensure you receive any important updates.
2. Take an inventory of the home. Categorizing helps: sort things according to what you, a sibling, or a neighbor may want to keep, what you will donate, and what can be trashed. Of course, that is easier said than done when it comes to your parent’s belongings. If that is the case, consider hiring professional appraisers to help establish the value of items.
3. Pare down or purge! You may view the home and reflect on the lovely life lived there, but buyers will just see someone else’s belongings. Buyers won’t be interested in the majority of the items in the home, so ideally, you should purge most of them. After determining the value of furniture, clothing, and jewelry, arrange for the delivery of or disposal of the home’s possessions. For hazardous materials (fertilizer, chemicals, leftover paint) check with your town or local carting facility. A real estate professional can help decide what to keep for staging the home for sale.
4. Get the home ready for market. Now that you’ve pared down the home’s interior it’s time to get the house ready for buyers to view. If the home was purchased 30 or 40 years ago, chances are the décor (paint, wallpaper, carpet) is outdated. If your parents were infirm prior to their move or death, there may be underlying structural issues that need to be addressed. A real estate professional can assess what needs to be updated or fixed prior to putting the house up for sale.

Saying goodbye to a home you and your parents have lived in for decades is hard. But selling it doesn’t have to be. Real estate agents can help you every step of the way, from providing referrals for services and staging the home for sale, to establishing the right price and negotiating the best deal.

What you can do now to get ready for the spring market

If you’re thinking of putting your home on the market this spring, this is the time to get HGTV-ready!

As that popular show reminds us, today’s buyers are shopping online. So, you really need to make a striking first impression that stops potential buyers mid-scroll. Your home must dazzle someone who’s checking Zillow at 4 a.m.

Decluttering is no longer enough

Many homeowners are focused on tidying up, thanks to Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo, whose book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, has sparked a global decluttering craze. But in order to achieve that picture-perfect look, you can’t just clean out a few closets; you must downsize your entire interior.

Less is more! What to clear out? If you have five sofas and chairs in a room, get rid of two of them. Imagine moving in two weeks: What are you going to take with you? If it’s not on your packing list, get rid of it or donate it now.

After your purge, take a good look around and ask yourself: What else can you do to make your home camera-ready?

My advice:

Get rid of heavy drapes and valances, and anything with pattern, including wallpaper. No one likes busy patterns or dark wood. Besides, they do not photograph well. Photos of your home have to sparkle and standout online. Think bling! Think bright and white!

I recommend that walls be all white or a very neutral light color. Other simple investments you can make and do yourself include putting in new light fixtures, new door hardware, and all-white bedding including comforters and shams. These are inexpensive items that will offer a huge bang for your buck.

Curb Appeal Counts

Lastly, if the weather is mild enough (even mid-winter), tidy up outside.

Clean up the last of the fall leaves and twigs, tuck away outdoor furniture, cut back shrubs and grasses so they’ll grow back nicely. Nothing looks lush and green in the early spring market, but you can make your property look trim and manicured.

Fiona Dogan is a Licensed Realtor® in the Rye office of Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty. She is a Westchester Five Star Real Estate Agent, Platinum Award winner, and an Accredited Buyer Representative. For more information, please contact Fiona Dogan at: fiona.dogan@juliabfee.com.