Insights
  • Tips For Sellers

The pricing game

25 September 2021

It wasn’t so long ago, when a homeowner decided to sell their property the agent would advertise it for the agreed price.

The price was set by the agent in consultation with the homeowner. The advertised price was simply the price the owner wanted. It was straightforward, transparent and honest.

  1. Why is the advertised price of many properties today become so misleading, ambiguous and inaccurate?
  2. What’s the Real Price words on a tag to ask for the actual value or cost of a buy or purchase?
  3. What has caused many agents to change the way they advertise the price of properties and deviate from the good old days of honest pricing?

If you ask agents who market properties with plus prices, or price above, many will tell you the reason they advertise the way they do is because they don’t know what price the home will sell for, and they want to test the market to see where it’s at. Although it’s true that no one knows what the final selling price of any property will be, professional agents should however be able to accurately estimate the likely selling price of any property within a 10% range. However it appears that this is not being reflected in many of the agents advertised prices.

When the market was booming, the excuse many agents gave for quoting low prices was because the market was moving so fast they couldn’t keep up with the rise in prices. But if this was true why are some agents still advertising properties in today’s flatter and more stable market at prices that are well below their market value.

The prices you see some properties advertised for, bears little relationship to their market value or the price the owners want.

Estimating the likely selling price of a home has never been hard, even when the market was booming. Calculating the estimated selling price of a home today has become even easier with so much more sales data and information on comparable sales instantly available on the internet.

Today’s consumers don’t want to waste their time viewing homes they can’t afford and they certainly don’t want to play the price guessing game that has crept into our industry.

 

Article by Paul Kounnas

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