The number one rule in an oversaturated market is to not over price your homes value. If you start out with too high a price on your home, you may have just added to your stress level, and selling a home is stressful enough. Your real estate agent should be providing you with a written market analysis, commonly referred to as a CMA-comparable market analysis- and be able to show you the number of active listings on the market in your price range, so you can see what other homes you are in competition with, in addition the market analysis should also provide you with everything pending in the past 3-6 months so you can see what kind of activity there has been in your price range, and last but not least, provide you with homes that have sold in the past 6 months. You will have a pretty good idea of the market and your REALTOR® should be able to also give you an idea of where the market is headed.  You depend on your agent for advice, not just on past market conditions, but on where the market is headed and at what price your home needs to be in order to sell in a competitive market place.

 There will be a lot of "behind the scenes" action taking place with your REALTOR® that you don’t know about. Contrary to popular opinion, the listing agent does not usually attempt to sell your home to a homebuyer. That isn’t very efficient. Listing agents market and promote your home to the hordes of other local agents who do work with homebuyers, dramatically increasing your personal sales force. During the first couple of weeks your home should be a flurry of activity with buyer’s agents coming to preview your home so they can sell it to their clients. 

If the price is right.

 If you and your agent have overpriced, fewer agents will preview your home. After all, they are Real Estate Professionals, and it is their job to know local market conditions and home values. If your house is dramatically above market, why waste time? Their time is better spent previewing homes that are priced realistically especially given the number of homes currently on the market today.

Dropping your price...Too Late

Later, when you drop your price, your house is "old news." You will never be able to recapture that flurry of initial activity you would have had with a realistic price and your house could take longer to sell. Even if you do successfully sell at an above market price, your buyer will need a mortgage. The mortgage lender requires an appraisal. If comparable sales for the last six months and current market conditions do not support your sales price, the house won’t appraise. Your deal falls apart. Of course, you can always attempt to renegotiate the price, but only if the buyer is willing to listen. Your house could go "back on the market."

 Once your home has fallen out of escrow or sits on the market awhile, it is harder to get a good offer. Potential buyers will think you might be getting desperate, so they will make lower offers. By overpricing your home in the beginning, you could actually end up settling for a lower price than you would have normally received. All these are important considerations when putting your home on the market. 

 Contact your Real Estate professional for more information.