Pittsburgh Homes Daily

There is an excellent post over on Soapbox, a blog about real estate appraisal issues, titled, “Using The Pool Cleaner To Get To the Right Price For Your Property.”  It concerns who a seller should rely on to price their home.  The conclusion seems right on: ”Go with who you think is the most competent and who you feel comfortable with.” Some additional thoughts:

First, the issue of who to rely on to price your home depends on how distinct your home is from other homes that have been on the market in your area.  In my area, most of the homes were built within 10 years of each other with a similar floor plan and similar square footage.  There are four distinguishing features: number of bathrooms (some houses have upgraded), size of the garage, whether there is a finished basement, and the maintenance / general appearance of the home.  For these houses (when they are not in foreclosure), there is about a $40,000 difference between the houses on the low end and those on the high end.  Based on this information, I’m confident that I could guess where my house falls within $5K, and certainly within $10K.  In this situation, I don’t think it really matters.

Second, I am not sure how much it matters who you consult with about the price in many situations.  The price that your home sells for may depend more on the marketing of your home than how you price it.  If you price it low, you may attract a competitive bidding situation.  You’ll hopefully sell your house faster (reducing the carrying cost if your house will otherwise be empty) and over the asking price.  Your risk is that you may leave a few dollars on the table.  If you take your seller’s ego into account and price it high, the buyers that come to the table (if any do) will probably be offering an amount based more on their assessment of the price of the home than your own.  If you have to reduce the price, your house may be the one on the market that no one wants and may ultimately sell for less (because you’re now desperate) than what it would have if you’d just priced it lower from the beginnning.

It seems to me that the pricing of your home matters the most when (a) you don’t expect many offers, for whatever reason; (b) your home receives insufficient marketing so that potential buyers aren’t aware of your home; or (c) when you have to make a quick decision on a single (first) offer.

If your home is in an area like mine, perhaps you don’t need either an appraiser or a broker.  If your home is unique, perhaps you need both.  On the other hand, maybe you don’t need either, because the person who loves your home may be willing to pay whatever you are asking.  If your home needs repairs, perhaps you need a general contractor to estimate the cost of repairs for your home in order to bring it to its true market value.  If the biggest selling feature of your home is the pool, then perhaps the pool cleaner is the right person to talk to …