Pricing a home isn’t as straightforward as the replacement value or the value assessed by the City of Calgary. There are many factors that come into consideration when determining what a house is worth and the value should usually be a range. The range may be upwards of 20% of the home’s value.
If you are not in a hurry, it makes sense to price higher and test the real estate market but if you are motivated, you may want to start low to sell as fast as possible.
In our experience, slow and steady often wins the race and it is the best strategy to get top dollar. If you have the time and patience we recommend pricing on the upper end and slowing adjusting down as opposed to large price drops.
For example, if the range is $650-700,000, start at the top and reduce in $10,000 increments after two weeks instead of waiting for one large $50,000 price drop. The large drop may get some attention but it does not bring more buyers to the market.
Here is why this system works. Most buyers, when working with a Realtor, have a search set up that sends that automatically emails activity that matches their search criteria. New listings, price adjustments, sales, etc are all emailed directly to the buyers. By adjusting in small increments you get additional exposure by putting your property in front of buyers over and over. If it didn’t get their attention the first time, you have additional chances for them to take notice (it also helps to adjust the first photo too). Multiple adjustments also allow your listing to get in front of any new buyers to the market since your initial listing.
Unless you have ultimate urgency, we usually recommend a sales strategy of aiming high, planned adjustments then execute, measure, correct, and continue.
For more information about selling, view our Selling Series here.