John Bendall owner of Re/Max Classic Group offers some tips on pricing your home well in the current market.

Many people have asked me what they need to get their home sold in the current Central New Jersey Real Estate market.  The advice I give over and over again is the single most important thing you can do is to price your home well.  The current market has provided more of a challenge in this area than previous markets have.  Home sellers need to decide if making a move is something they want to do or something they need to do.

Many times once a seller has an appraisal or a professional market analysis they come up with a price that they would like to “try and see what happens”.  Unfortunately our market does not currently allow room for test pricing.  A recent study by the Otteau Valuation Group backs up this theory.   “Otteau found that in a market where prices are declining, sellers who "test the market" with a high price usually end up with a lower price than those who price realistically.”  The study showed that houses that are priced well are selling.  “He looked at houses that sold in less than a month, and found that they had a median asking price of $599,900 and sold for almost full price – a median of $599,000. When he looked at houses that lingered on the market for more than a month, however, he found that they were priced higher – at a median of $634,900 – but actually sold for less, a median of $585,000. The median is the point at which half the sale prices are above and half below. “

As we all know home sale prices have declined and may continue to do so at least in the short term.  With this in mind it is common sense to think that the longer your home stays on the market, the less it will sell for.  If you need to sell the best thing you can do is price your home competitively to get it sold as soon as possible.  Of course it is important to keep in mind that if you intend to remain in the same market things have a way of balancing out.  If you sell low it is likely that you will also be able to find a new home that you can buy at a lower price than you would be able to if prices were going up. 

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