How to Price Homes in a Competitive Real Estate Market

Learn helpful tips for Realtors on how to price homes in a competitive real estate market.

In today’s market with very high buyer demand, it’s important to address how to price homes. I talked to Albert Meggers, owner of five large brokerages in Southern California (with over 850 total real estate agents), and we discussed how to go about pricing homes in today’s competitive market. A key element to this is educating your sphere of influence through your marketing. And of course, the other key is to strategically price your listings to draw more buyers.

VIDEO: How to Price Homes in a Competitive Real Estate Market

In a hot real estate market, a lot of your clients may be asking, “When is a good time to buy and sell?” The answer is yesterday. And if not yesterday, then this morning. If not this morning, then this afternoon. This might come across like something a salesman would say, but it’s absolutely accurate.

When you buy or sell real estate that is your personal residence, it doesn’t matter when you do it. If you sell your house at the top of the market, you’ll also be buying at the top of the market. If you sell low, you’ll also be buying low. So, if you want to move, you should be moving sooner while it’s more affordable rather than later. You don’t hear many people say, “Boy, I wish I would have waited!” It’s usually the opposite. Sooner is always better. If you know you want to move and you’re looking to get something bigger or nicer, now is always the best time to upgrade.

Educate your sphere of influence

Right now, it is amazing that the public is still grossly unaware of how hot the market is. It is on us to get the word out. In order to combat the public’s unawareness, you must market better. This includes putting out social media graphics that talk about numbers. Through these graphics, you can show supply and demand, and provide real numbers and results. If you communicate these facts by a variety of methods to your SOI, you will begin to get the word out. You will get members of your sphere of influence to start thinking about the value that they are sitting on, and how they could be using the equity they have in their home to their advantage and use it to upgrade their living situation right now.

Strategy for how to price homes right now: create a feeding frenzy of buyers

Tell the story of how hot the market is right now by providing real examples of what you are seeing when it comes to multiple offers. Talk about how many offers you are getting.

Think about how you price homes in this market. What draws the most offers and ultimately drives up the price? Try pricing your listings below market value and let the offers drive up the price even higher. Knock out any contingencies you can and create a buyer feeding frenzy. This scenario will do all the talking for you and demonstrate to a potential client that you can do the same for their listing.