How To Determine A Selling Price

As much as we or our homeowners would love to set a price and then sell their home for it – that’s just not how it works.  The Brantford real estate market sets the sale price, depending on the shape of the market according to the laws of supply and demand.  Remember, successfully selling your home is about timing.

Unfortunately there are many aspects that homeowners may feel should have an impact on the value of their home but DON’T.

The following does NOT affect the value of your home:

  • How much a similar home costs in another market area.
  • How quickly you need to sell your home.
  • The value of your home when you bought it.
  • How much houses sold for in your area last year.
  • How much it would cost to build an identical house today.
  • The value of any home improvement renovations completed on the home may or may not affect the value – don’t count on it.

They key to successfully selling your home comes down to predicting the maximum amount of money that a buyer will pay for your home.  This is done through careful monitoring of the market and finding the correct balance between the highest price and a price that will sell your home quickly.  Our experience in the Brantford market pays dividends as we have the highest sales value figures and the lowest time spent on market numbers out of any agency in the area.  We are experts at setting the right price for your home through a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis), which we use to determine what a buyer in your area is willing to pay for your property.  Check out our previous article about pricing a home for sale in Brantford for additional information.

Contact us anytime for a free home evaluation or CMA to determine how much you can sell your house for.

The CMA takes into account three categories to determine a price.

  • The first factor that is taken into consideration is how much similar properties have sold for in your area in recent months.
  • The second factor is similar properties that are currently listed on the market.  This shows what the competition you are up against looks like and how the market is valuing their homes.
  • The third factor a CMA considers is your area’s expired listings.  These are properties that didn’t sell, for one reason or another – usually asking price.  We can analyze what went wrong and learn from their mistakes.

The CMA is only one aspect of the tools we use to determine an appropriate asking price for your property.  Additionally we include factors such as:

  • Property location
  • Lot size
  • Home size
  • Home condition
  • Style of home
  • Nearby amenities (schools, transit, groceries, medial, dental etc.)
  • Market value

We find that meeting the market price as best as possible is the key to an efficient sales process.  Buyers tend to shy away from homes that are undervalued in the same way they dismiss overpriced listings.  These days, most home buyers receive property listings direct from their realtor, newspaper or an email newsletter.  Buyers who have $350,000 to spend won’t be looking at homes valued over $400,000 or homes under $300,000.  We want your home to be seen by the maximum amount of buyers who are looking for a home like yours.  Another pitfall of incorrect pricing is that a home that sits on the market for too long loses some of its desirability in the eyes of the market.  Even though it may be only the price that is keeping your home form being sold, but in the eyes of buyers, it will seem like something else is wrong.  Once your home is listed for sale on the market the DOM (days on market) counter begins.  A realtor searching for homes to introduce to their buyers may put homes that have been on market for a while near the bottom of their list.  This is because they are concerned there is something wrong with the property or they may have seen the listing so many times and given up on it.

Our experience has taught us that a correctly priced home not only sells the best, but it gets the best offers.

Even with the perfect price, selling a home is usually not instantaneous.  The average home buyer takes roughly one month to complete their search and choose a property they want to buy.  Once a buyer has gone through the list of properties for sale in a specific neighbourhood, they will subsequently only be interested in new listings.  This means that your home often only gets one chance to impress a buyer, so make sure yours is competitively priced right from the get go.

Consult with our experts for the best plan to market and sell your home in the Brantford real estate market.