Pricing your home and choosing your agent

Every house sells at market value eventually. The question is whether it sells there in the first two weeks with competing offers, or three months later after two price reductions and a stale listing history. Pricing is what decides that, and pricing done well is not a guess or a wish. It is a written analysis of what buyers in your town actually paid for houses like yours, adjusted for condition, and read against what is on the market against you right now.

What a real comparative market analysis includes

An automated estimate from a portal is an average of a wide area. It has never been inside your house or the ones it is comparing it to. A comparative market analysis, or CMA, is prepared by an agent who knows the town, and it looks at:

• Recent sales of similar homes in your town, ideally within the last six months and within a mile or two
• Adjustments for what is different: square footage, lot, garage, condition, updates, and location on the street
• Active and pending listings you will be competing with the weekend you go live
• Days on market and list-to-sale price ratios, which tell us how much room buyers are leaving
• Absorption rate, meaning how many months of inventory exist at your price point in your town

The result is a recommended list price with the reasoning written down, plus a net sheet showing what you walk away with after the mortgage payoff, commission, conveyance tax, and attorney fees. You should never have to guess what a number means for you.

Why the first two weeks decide the sale

The largest pool of buyers a listing will ever see is the group that has been searching for weeks and gets the new-listing alert the day it goes live. If the price is right, they show up that first weekend, and competition among them is what produces the strongest offer. If the price is high, they look, mentally file it as overpriced, and move on. When you reduce the price a month later, most of them have already bought something else.

This is why we price to the market on day one rather than starting high to leave room. In Connecticut's tighter markets, a well-priced home often sells above list. An overpriced home almost never does.

The cost of overpricing

An overpriced listing does more than sit. It helps sell the correctly priced houses around it, because buyers use it as the example of what not to pay. As days on market climb, buyers assume something is wrong with the house, and the offers that eventually come in are lower than they would have been at the right price from the start. We track this in every town we work in, and the pattern holds year after year.

Pricing strategy is not one size fits all

The right approach depends on your goals and your town. A seller who needs the highest possible number and can wait is in a different position than one who is relocating for a job in six weeks. A condo in a building with three other units for sale needs a different strategy than the only four-bedroom colonial listed in Hebron this month. We lay out the options, including pricing at market, pricing just under a common search threshold to pull in more buyers, and when a slightly higher price is defensible, and let you make the call with the full picture.

Choosing the agent

Interview more than one, and be careful with the agent who quotes the highest price. Some agents win the listing with a number and then ask for the reduction a month later. Ask each one to show you the comparables behind their price and to explain their marketing plan in detail. Questions worth asking:

• What did you base this price on, and can I see the comps?
• Who takes the photos and video, and can I see examples from your recent listings?
• Where does my listing go beyond the MLS, and how do you reach buyers who are not searching yet?
• How many agents are in your office with buyers looking in my town right now?
• How will I hear about showings and feedback, and how fast do you return calls?
• What happens if the house has not sold in thirty days?

At Carl Guild & Associates, every listing gets professional media, a written CMA, SmartMLS syndication to every major portal, targeted social campaigns, a listing website, and a network of 100+ agents across four Connecticut offices with buyers already in their pipeline. We have been selling Connecticut homes since 2006, and we would rather tell you the real number than the one you want to hear.

Understanding the listing agreement

The listing agreement sets the list price, the term, the commission, and any compensation you choose to offer a buyer's agent. Commission is negotiable and is written out in plain language. We go through every line with you before you sign, and the net sheet shows exactly what each item means in dollars at a given sale price. If anything is unclear, ask. A good agent wants you to understand the agreement, not just sign it.