A Guide to Pricing for Houston Home Sellers
As Houston home sellers, one of the most important (and difficult) decisions you will make is what asking price to set for your home.
Part of the reason that this process is so difficult is because Houston home sellers can have a hard time separating the emotional elements from the practical. When you have invested so much time and money into a home, it becomes very easy to reflect that into the asking price – even when it is not warranted.
In order to be successful, Houston home sellers need to keep one thing in mind: they do not set the price. The Houston market is responsible for setting the price.
Therefore, as Houston home sellers prepare to list their home for sale, they need to keep in mind the following:
Your Pricing Can Make (or Break) Your Houston Home Sale
The key determinant to whether your Houston home will sell quickly or linger on the market is where Houston home sellers decide to list your home at.
Overpricing your home can be bad for many reasons, but perhaps one of the worst is that Houston home sellers end up missing their target audience. If you price your home with the thinking that you have some room to negotiate down, the potential buyers who would be in that range will skip right over your house as it will be above and beyond their budget.
However, if you underprice your Houston home, your run the risk of leaving money on the table. Underpricing is often a strategy used in order to create bidding wars. When multiple buyers see that a house is underpriced, they will put in bids. Once Houston home sellers have multiple offers, they can play them off of each other in an effort to get above and beyond the asking point.
However, if no bidding war is created, you could be stuck with an offer far below where you were intending to sell at.
How Comps Help Houston Home Sellers
One of the ways that Houston home sellers can ensure that they are pricing in line with the Houston market is by researching the local comparable sales. These “comps” provide home sellers with insight into what other homes are being sold for or have recently sold at. This snapshot into the current market can provide Houston home sellers with a price range to consider.
Compare Like to Like
While comps are valuable tools in the pricing process, Houston home sellers will want to make sure that they are not comparing the wrong houses. For best result when using comps, sellers will want to take into consideration key metrics like square footage, age, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and lot size.
Take Renovations into Consideration
When comparing Houston homes to one another it is also important to take into account any major renovations. While not all renovations will provide a return on investment, some can impact the asking price.
Take for example a Houston home with a recently renovated kitchen, complete with a granite countertops, new cabinets and brand new stainless steel appliances. While the entire investment might not be factored into the asking price, these updates will factor into the equation.
When pricing your Houston home to sell, be sure to incorporate as much research as possible. Since your price make or break your sale, Houston home sellers will want to be sure that they are approaching the task as intelligently as possible.