Pricing Your Home Correctly is an Art & Science

Even in a highly competitive seller’s market like we’re currently experiencing, making sure that your home sells successfully boils down to having the correct list price. Your home might be absolutely perfect, full of upgrades, and in a fantastic location, but if the listing price is too high, you’re in for a long and stressful experience (and eventually a price reduction).

Before REALTOR® Anders Ibsen’s real estate career, Anders was a licensed appraiser on the FHA (Federal Housing Administration) Roster, as well as having served two terms on the Tacoma City Council. Anders has years of experience understanding Tacoma neighborhoods, land-use policies, and property valuation techniques, and employs that expert knowledge for his clients’ benefit. Residential real estate is inherently complicated, and determining the value of a home and its most advantageous list price is more than simply evaluating square footage or room count, for example. You must take into consideration the dynamics of the market, and essentially find the comparable properties that likely buyers would also consider buying besides yours, and apply the proper adjustments to find the likely selling value. In the world of appraising, this is called the “Principle of Substitution.”

Anders CNN Interview About Online Home Value Estimates

In a recent CNN Business article titled “Selling your home? Here's how accurate online estimates are,” Anders was interviewed about his perspective regarding online home value estimate tools. His conclusion? While useful for a superficial review, they cannot replace a knowledgeable real estate professional with in-depth local knowledge. Anders recently sold this stunning waterfront home in Northeast Tacoma, and he uses this home as an example in the CNN article.

The article describes how one online estimate put this waterfront home’s value at $658,000. However, Anders knew after evaluating the home and analyzing comparables that $950,000 was actually an accurate price for the property. Anders shares that these online websites “aren’t bad tools. They just aren’t all-knowing.”

Preparing this Northeast Tacoma Waterfront Home for Sale

When Anders begins working with clients, he doesn’t tell and sell—he actively listens. Anders began by talking to the owners of this waterfront home, and learned about what they had done to renovate it, what was important to them about selling their home, and what had attracted them to the home in the first place. All of this information helped him get a better sense of their motivations and goals. Before Anders even set foot in the house, he sent the sellers information on the real estate market, his own marketing process, and background on his past clients.

Then Anders did a walk-through of the home and took some notes. The seller of this particular home is an interior designer who works for high-end property owners, so they had done several smart updates that completely transformed the home and added value. Anders suggested some modifications to enhance the competitiveness of the home, including various repairs that were mostly basic maintenance items, such as cleaning the gutters, some new paint, and basic landscaping. Anders has a list of people to make updates or repairs that he can recommend to his clients if they don’t want to do the work themselves, which also includes concierge services such as professional staging.

Pricing this Waterfront Home in Northeast Tacoma

You can have spectacular photography and great marketing, but it’s nothing if you’re wrong on the list price. If you list too low, you might be leaving money on the table. If you shoot too high, you might lose out on the benefits of competitive pricing, like receiving multiple offers. Anders had a candid, productive conversation with his seller client about the market and their pricing strategy to land on the $950,000 list price.

Implementing a Smart & Savvy Marketing Strategy

Once this home was prepped and staged, it was time for photography and videography. Since this waterfront home had incredible natural light, Anders made sure to get the seller’s input on when their home would have the best lighting. As it was a view property, he sent his photographer out to the home twice—one in the daylight, and one during sunset. Anders also had drone photography done and had a video tour made of the home to best capture all of its best attributes. The same goes for all of the writing about the home—Anders consulted with the sellers to make sure he was sharing the home’s most relevant attributes, and giving full credit for all the specific updates that were done.

Anders used direct mail to market the listing to likely buyers in the area; used analytics to plan highly detailed social media advertising; organized several open houses; and posted the listing on Facebook, Instagram, his website, and Youtube.

Anders also uses a less-known tool called “reverse prospecting.” There is a tool in the MLS where agents can see if there are agents who have buyer clients that have flagged a listing as a favorite. Those buyer agents might not even know their clients have shown interest in the home, so Anders will call those agents and personally touch base with them about their clients’ interest.

Selecting the Best Offer

Once offers start coming in, Anders recognizes that a seller’s best chance for securing the best price and terms comes from negotiating on the front end - prior to being under contract. Due to his extensive marketing program, Anders’ sellers received two offers after only four days on the market. By employing strategic planning, tough negotiating, and forging a win/win outcome for both the buyers and sellers, Anders’ sellers enjoyed not only lucrative net proceeds at closing, but a smooth transaction that was completely predictable and stress-free.

Would you like to learn more about listing your home in Tacoma? REALTOR® Anders Ibsen is happy to chat about your home’s value, the market, and answer any questions you may have. You can call/text Anders at (253) 370-0201, email him at [email protected], and reach out to him here. You can also connect with Anders on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.