Is Your Home for Sale at Too Low of a Price?

Sellers are often amazed when they immediately receive an offer after going on the market in Sacramento. Part of that amazement comes from not fully realizing the reach and breadth of our MLS and Internet marketing. Everything is instant nowadays. People have no patience for anything. They want it now, and two hours ago would be even better. However, when you consider the fact that we are now in a seller’s market — which means buyers are camped out in your back yard, lurking around the corner, ready to jump out at you when you take out the morning trash and shout SURPRISE, here is a full price offer plus a little bit more — it is not really amazing at all to get a fast response on your home for sale.

But there will always be sellers who genuinely believe that if they receive an offer as soon as the home goes on the market, they must have priced it too low. I don’t know where they get that idea. They could have priced that home in Sacramento at such a high price point where it won’t ever appraise until Honey Boo Boo grows up to become president, god forbid, but buyers still might make an offer on that home for sale. The price of a home can make or break a transaction, and homes that won’t appraise are unlikely to close escrow.

But then a seller will have the right to march around and tell all her friends that she got a whopping offer for her house but the appraisal just messed up everything. That appraisers don’t know what they are doing. And some of them don’t. That’s part of the problem, too.

I tell my sellers to respond to offers within 2 to 3 days. Buyers don’t like to wait more than a day or two at the most. It’s possible that subsequent offers might be higher but they might not. The best offer is not always the highest. Sometimes the best offer is your first offer and sometimes it’s not. There is no hard and fast rule for offers on a home for sale.

But just because you received an offer right away doesn’t mean you’ve priced it too low. It means you have priced it just right.