What's Working Now!

Welcome to another episode of “What’s Working Now!” Today I’m here to give you three easy tips to make sure your house is priced right when it comes time to sell:

1) Coming soon

2) Sneak peek

3) Listing on the MLS

Here’s how this strategy works in action. We recently listed a property that we thought should be priced somewhere between $1.75 and $1.95 million. I liked the lower number and the owner liked the higher number (surprise), so here’s what we did.

We signed an agreement with the seller and tried the higher number first. However, we didn’t list it at that number on the MLS. We advertised the property as “coming soon” instead. I put the word out to my network of 3,000 local real estate agents, 2,000 homebuyers and investors, and posted it on the top agent network. I also advertised it on my neighborhood listserv. Over the course of three weeks, I got maybe two phone calls. A few people took a look at the house but weren’t impressed by the price.

Next, we went on to step two: sneak peek. We went back to our network of agents and prospects, the listserv, and made phone calls to various agents I know who might be looking for property. We advertised it at the same high number and got more of the same comments from before.

This finally made us understand that it was time to list the home on the MLS. The home had been painted, cleaned, and staged, and was ready to hit the market running. We went ahead and put the sign in the yard and posted it on the MLS for $1.75 million. We advertised it in the traditional method, had the open house, and got a great offer on the first day it hit the market. The home sold itself from there.

There you have it—three easy steps to find the right price for your house. If you have two numbers in mind, try the higher one first, then the lower. Lower is usually better because it gets more people in the door.

If you have any questions for me about what we did or what you can do to make sure your home sells for a great price, don’t hesitate to reach out and give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.