How to Figure Out the Right Price to List Your Fairfield County CT Home.

When you arrive at the decision to sell your home,  the next thing to do is to meet with an agent who will conduct a market analysis to value your property appropriately for the current market.

Here's where it can get tricky as far as pricing is concerned. Not all agents are proficient at pricing.  If you decide to call a total of three agents, you are sure to get three different prices.

Yes, they should all be looking at the same competition in the marketplace, and they should all be using a number of comparable sales to arrive at their price, but how is a homeowner to figure out the correct price when three agents give three different answers?

The best price analysis that you can obtain is one where the agent doesn't even have to tell you the price. It should be inherently obvious based upon the  information in the report. If it is not,  that's probably not the correct price.. That's all there is to it.

An analysis of a few active properties and a few sold homes are really representative of those homes and not of the the overall  market in general-  especially not your home.

Some agents will inflate their pricing estimate  just to get you to sign a listing agreement, because you will be happier with the price. Don't go that route, and be extra careful. If there is not enough information to back up their claim, the price is just pie in the sky, and you shouldn't rely on it.

A thorough analysis is always necessary to obtain a truly accurate value, and if the analysis isn't thorough, it should not be relied upon. Again, it should be obvious or very close to obvious as to what your home should "list" for, and also include data and what the estimated sales price will be. We all have the same information, it's just how hard the agent wants to work to do it properly

If you are ready to  sell your home, and want the best reliable and most accurate price, contact me. I will perform a True Market Analysis for you at no cost.

If you have a question about buying or selling Real Estate in Fairfield County, and are in need of representation, I invite you to contact me, and if you have an idea for a topic that you would like to see on The CT Realty Blog, please include it in the "Post a Comment" section link below this post. We appreciate the feedback and look forward to providing you with the best real estate content, advice and service in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

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Having Trouble Selling your CT Home? It's Time to Try a Different Approach

If your home seems to be languishing on the market while others are selling,  it's time to change the marketing approach.  The longer your home sits on the market, the more likely it is to sell at a lower price than originally anticipated. And worse yet, it costs you money every day that your home sits idly by in the market.

Quite simply, if the marketing strategy for your home is not working, have your agent change it, or change agents. Give it enough time to kick in, but if nothing is happening, it's time to change directions.

Have you ever heard  the  definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

The best thing that can be done is to change the advertising slant, or focus. If what you or your agent is doing right now isn't working, well. ... then it doesn't work. Period. Don't become "married" to any one idea if it is not producing results.

Experienced marketers identify their most probable consumer(s) and target that audience in a strong way. If the product doesn't sell, they change the ad.  But the problem is two-fold for real estate..  

First, and for quite some time, agents didn't really have to have a marketing strategy other than putting your home on the MLS. Homes flew off the market as a by-product of a good economy.  That doesn't exist right now.

Secondly, and maybe even more importantly- the agents that recognize that they will actually have to market your home don't have a real clue as to how to do it. They try, they might write a halfway decent ad, but it stops there. And here lies the problem. Most agents have an expressive personality. They write an ad that sounds good to THEM. It may  sound good to you, too. That's all well and good, but the pure expressive personality type represents only 25% of the buying population. The other 75% of the buying population dismisses that ad, either consciously or subconsciously.

Let me put it to you another way that might be easier to identify with, about appealing to different personality types. Have you ever heard someone acknowledge  in conversation that they can " see what you mean", or "I hear ya"?.  Those two people would  respond very differently to the same ad. One is visually stimulated, while the other responds to audio.

The psychology of sales is a very interesting subject. I have researched it thoroughly and am completely fascinated  by all of its intricacies. To explain it as succinctly as possible, it is of the UTMOST importance to reach as many qualified buyers in their own "language" that appeals to their dominant personality  type.

In order to be most effective, the advertising of your home must appeal to the four different personality types, and have something of interest and value  for each one in order to produce a sale.  This is the essence of marketing. It's complex but incredibly effective. You , as a homeowner, really don't need to have this knowledge. Your agent does, or should.

I have that knowledge and the expertise to implement it, and I will explain to you exactly how my strategic marketing works. When you want to sell your home, just contact me.

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Founder of ForSaleByOwner Company Hires Realtor to sell his home.

Now that's a kick. Here's a man who earned quite a bit of money as the CEO of a company that promotes  and makes a lot of money from FSBO's (For Sale By Owners),  how easy it is do yourself, and when it came time to sell his own house, what did he do?

He hired a Realtor.

The company he founded, by the way is ForSaleByOwner.com

You know what happened? The Realtor felt that the seller's asking price was the wrong strategy, and urged the founder and former CEO to raise the price by a whopping $150,000. There were multiple offers, and then.. it sold! So not only was this particular owner underpricing his home,  he will net MORE out of the sale after the real estate  commission is paid. If you want to know, his home sold for  $2.15 million and it was in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

This just seems so incredibly comical that someone in that position would go against his own grain, and it should speak volumes to the many sellers with no real knowledge of selling real estate as to what they should do when it comes time to sell their home.

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The Top Five Mistakes that Sellers make- The Fairfield County CT Version

Here it is. It offer my own version of the Top Five Mistakes that Sellers Make.  You may have seen a littany of articles on those "top five mistakes". Go ahead if you want, and look at all of the articles on this subject-  there are quite a lot, I can assure you. As a matter of fact, I typed in "top five mistakes that sellers make" in Google and it returned about 415,000,000 results in just 0.32 seconds.

With that, I offer you my original Top Five, which may not necessarily agree with the other Top Five Lists, but I can pretty much guarantee you that all of these are appropriate for our area,  and actually..... anywhere you want to sell your home. Here they are, in order of importance.

1. Hire the Right Realtor
2. Hire the Right Realtor
3, 4 and 5. Hire the Right Realtor!

All of the reasons that your home doesn't sell is because the wrong Realtor is representing you, period- end of story.

Hiring the wrong Realtor is the worst thing that you could possibly do. All four hundred some-odd million of these lists could have stopped right there, because all of the other items that are on those lists  are agent related.

The bottom line is that it rests with your Realtor, so your top five priorities in selling your home should truly be focused on just one thing. That is, Hire the Right Realtor.  There is  only one answer to the number of "mistakes"  that I saw, and continue to see in the marketplace. Here  are some of them, and as you can see, the common denominator has to be your agent.
 
1. Overpricing Your Home- wouldn't your Realtor tell you the right price?
2. Not staging your home? Doesn't your Realtor assist you with this as part of their service?
3. Under-marketing or OVER-marketing your home including misrepresenting your home's features, condition or square footage? Your Realtor is the professional he/she should know exactly how to market your home. Shame on your Realtor for this one, period.
4. Sticking around during Showings, and/or not making your home readily accessible for showings? Hasn't your Realtor advised you how this can adversely affect your home sale?
5. Picking the wrong buyer- Shouldn't your Realtor be helping you on this?

Keep it simple and get it sold. Hire the Right Realtor.  These people did.

......and the right Realtor? That's me! :)

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Positioning Your Home "IN" the Real Estate Market is Supermarket Science.

You should know the difference between being IN the market and ON the market. Being IN the market means that your agent is doing everything he/she possibly can do to make sure your home is visible to as many qualified buyers as possible. Being ON the market means that although your home is listed for sale, your home is NOT as visible as it can and should be.

That's where positioning your home in the marketplace become KEY!

Positioning your home IN the market means pricing it strategically, and placing it strategically within the marketplace. The best examples I can use for both strategies is in something you can see with your own eyes every day, or as often as you want and is simple to understand. It's that black and white.

 The next time you go into the supermarket, take special note of  where the staples are. By the staples I mean butter, milk and meat. There's a valuable marketing  lesson there.

Actually, I can tell you exactly where they are. They are in the back of the store, or at the rear of an aisle. Why do I know this? Supermarkets and grocery stores have positioning down to a science. Years of research tells the management to put those necessary everyday  items in the back of the store so you can't run in and run out without possibly picking something else up along the way. It's great marketing- no doubt about it. And the equivalent  of  that is "positioning your home  IN  the market".

The supermarkets and grocery stores have the pricing strategy down pat, too.  The most expensive items on the shelf are generally at eye level, because they are easy to see, and easy to get to. The deals are on the bottom shelf or on the top shelf, and are harder to spot. Sometimes the supermarket positioners play tricks on you where there is a "teaser" item on the middle shelf with a very low price, and an extremely marked up item right next to it. The trick they are trying to play on you is that if you see something that is priced very well on the shelf, you might also pick up that item next to it, not realizing that it has been marked up considerably.

Now I don't subscribe to any trickery in real estate, but I DO believe in  strategic pricing and strategic positioning in order to get my clients the very best price for their home. Can I tell you what the strategy is for your home? It is not the same rule of thumb for every home. It can't be. But, when you hire me to market and sell your home,  you can rest assured that I will be strategic in every move I make to get you the very best price.   Just contact me whenever you're ready.

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