Shhh! It’s a Secret!
If you happen to work in my local market place, stop reading. This is one of the best conversations on any listing appointment I go on. But really…you don’t want to know.
Go on…go….
You Heard Me Right…Raise Your Price!
Last week I spent a few minutes pouring through the MLS and noticed the large number of agents that continue to price homes as if we are in a retail store.
I had an interesting response from Josh Ferris of Hudson Valley, New York. “It’s a psychological trick. Ask a friend: if two identical homes were priced at $299,900 & $300,000 which one would they rather see?”
What is $299,900? Does an agent actually believe that a consumer is psychologically fooled into thinking that this home is less than $300,000? That strategy is meaningful in retail when decisions are made in a few hours, minutes, and even seconds. But a home purchase? I’m going to take a leap here and suggest that whatever value that can be achieved by that psychological game, is far outweighed by what is lost. And what is lost? Buyer’s eyeballs.
It’s the Web Folks!
As a real estate professional, have you gone through the process of searching for a home recently? Really, go online and search for a home like you are buying one for yourself. We seem to all intellectually understand that a consumer’s home search begins online. So go take a look. Nearly every major search tool on the internet uses $25,000 or $50,000 increments.
So what happens when you price your listing at $499,900? Every buyer that just search $100 over that, $500,000 to $550,000 for example, just missed your listing. Bummer.
Big bummer.
Wouldn’t it be better to price that home at the price points on those search tools? By pricing at those $25,000 segments, you capture the broadest set of eyes on that home. No retail pricing game, but much better – eyeballs. Buyers.
So Go Ahead! Raise Your Price! (let’s just keep this between us….yes?)
