By Paul Amos


Because overpriced homes usually take longer to sell and sell for less than market value. This concept is so important that I am going to repeat it - overpricing your home is the biggest mistake you could do when selling your home. And once you have done that it is very hard to recover if you change your mind.

But before you name your price you need to do some homework first. You will need to research and get an in-depth understanding of your local real estate market. And by local I don't mean your state, or city, or even the general area where your home is located like North Scottsdale or North Phoenix. Local here means the immediate area around your home. This is the area that you could cover walking if you wanted to.

This includes your neighbors and the houses located within less than a mile from you. Those are the houses potential buyers will likely see when they are looking to buy in your area. Potential buyers will compare your home to those houses in your local real estate market and make a decision whether your home is fairly priced or not.

How much time do you have to dedicate to selling your home? If you work full-time and has very little time to dedicate to marketing your home, you may be better off hiring someone to do that on your behalf. In the other hand, if you do have the time and inclination, you can do a lot of the marketing yourself.

How many similar houses are available for sale in your neighborhood and what are their asking prices. If all the similar houses in your area are being offered below $350k, it would be difficult to sell your home for $400k.

And if you price your house right, you can even include in your marketing material a chart comparing the price of your home with all the other more expensive homes in the neighborhood. Wouldn't you love to be able to show all potential buyers that your house is priced 10% below the average price in your neighborhood?

And remember that although most people thing it is an all or nothing proposition, you can always go half-way. You can hire a REALTOR to help you with some parts of the process, and do the rest yourself. For example, you could hire a REALTOR to negotiate and do the paperwork on your behalf, but do the marketing yourself. Or you could hire a REALTOR to keep you updated on the local real estate market trends while you manage the marketing and negotiation yourself.

And the best place to find this information (recent sales, pending transactions, and houses available for sale) is through a local, knowledgeable REALTOR with access to the multiple listing service (MLS) in your area. The fact that you decided to sell your home yourself does not mean that you should completely discard the services a local REALTOR can provide you. Why not get the best of both worlds?




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