Seller Success Story: Pricing and Options

Two quick stories for you today, Wednesday success stories. We have one about pricing and one about the options you have as a seller.

We had a seller recently, I've had someone on the east side of town and they wanted to list their property at a certain price. They wanted to go from the $220,000 and I told them $212,000. We had an unbelievable case study actually. They ended up running their comps in July and then again in August when they listed. We had comps showing homes that were still on the market in August that was on in July cause they were above the fair market value. They're sitting there and then we had homes in August that were already pending that weren't on the previous comparable study. They were not on that too. That means they already accepted an offer within 30 days. So probably within a week or two that accepted our offer cause they were at fair market value and they sold at that.

Never overprice

When you overprice, you end up chasing the market down and whether you're selling a home or a car, it doesn't matter. There's something on eBay, it does not matter. So we ended up pricing. We met in the middle and I want him to be at $212,000. We ended up meeting at $219,000. I told them, "You know what? It's probably gonna be $212,000 because everything else, like three or four great comps are showing us exactly $212,000. They wanted to be at $220,000-$225,000 and we ended up selling for $212,000.

We had time for $219,000 as a cash offer. However, there was a $7,000 assessment. So ended up selling for $212,000 because low and behold - there was an assessment on it. The sellers could have maybe gotten away if they really fought it and maybe not pay the assessment, because I think it was over a couple of years. But, in general, assessments have to be paid upfront. So, could you win that argument? You could. Be tough though. However, the basis that the buyers came in and said, "Well, hey, the prices are usually about $212,000." Exactly what I told the sellers. "Hey, we're gonna do an assessment for seven grand. So it kind of works out perfectly." We'll do $219,000 but we want you to pay the assessment actually. So they ended up netting that now. The price did reflect that in $219,000 however, the sellers didn't get that, they got the $212,000. Right?

The negative impression

So ended up being exactly what I told them. It would be because the buyers actually threw that on the table and said that we know the counter are right around here, but we'll compromise and say, "Hey, if you do this, we'll give you that price." So again, it just goes to show the whole point - you have to find people that know exactly how to price property when you're pricing property as a seller. Don't get super greedy. I see people do this all the time. They get super greedy and then they ended up losing out on more money because instead of selling quickly, fast and efficiently, they end up chasing the market down as they overprice. Then people think there's either something wrong with it or it's overpriced. They know it's one of those two things and then you chase the market down.

The second story is about options. We just had another one in Royal Oak recently. Someone who had a home they lived in for a long time, about 40 years and they really wanted to just get out of home quickly. This is something that most sellers don't understand. They, unfortunately, don't understand what the price is usually. A lot of times it's because people generally don't trust their advisers, which I know is hard to do. But like I have a hard time with that sometimes as well. But doing due diligence with your advisors is the most important thing you could do. That way you could trust the advice they're giving you. Here, we gave them different options as Mitten Made Properties Real Estate Team, we give seller's options. We either joint venture with them. We will buy that cash from them or we will sell it retail. There are many different options that you have as a seller. Seller financing, there's a litany of options, right? So we gave this lady a number of options. She chose a quick cash offer and she was extremely excited. She didn't want to wait around. She didn't want to sit and hope that someone would come. She doesn't want to wait for financing. She wanted to close at 7-14 days cash offer. Right now. That's something that most people don't know that exists. Because most real estate teams or most real estate agents don't have that ability to give them.

A handful of options

With the world we're entering, with all these offers and open door and all these million things going on and we're going to see more of it. If agents don't offer sellers these options and give them these options that they don't know exist, then they are going to fall by the wayside. Mark my words. They are going to be in trouble. So we just had another gentleman and Lake Orion. Rep. He looked at me and he was like - he's not a spring chicken. We'll say that. He said, "Brandon, I've sold many homes throughout my life. I've never seen these options before. I've never seen these options that you and your team have given me." And it's pretty cool to do it. It's a win, win-win for everybody. Everyone gets the choice, the seller gets to choose what they want to do. Our team gets to facilitate what the seller wants and give them what they're looking for. Because most people just run in and say, "I got my comps, let's put it on the market, retail and analyze it. Hope that someone comes and buys it." But that's not the right situation for every seller. Now it might work for some sellers, but it's not gonna work for every seller. Some people want something different and a lot of people are afraid sometimes because they just don't want the traditional route.

How can you help them? Well, you can give them options. We call it "the menu of options." So give them a menu of options and let them pick. It's just like, I wish health care was like that. I wish you'd go to the doctor and be like, I want this or that price. And that's another story for a different day. But you get the picture, we give you a menu of options. As I said, it could give me a cash offer quick. It could be a seller financing where you become an investor and start making money, you don't have to do anything at the home anymore, but you're making money each month - principal and interest, becoming the bank in essence. You could joint venture on it. You could sell it retail and put a sign in the ground. You have to give you solid retail while we're doing so many other things as well. So there's just many, many things you could do and just want to be share these couple little stories with you about the importance of selling your home correctly. Really, truly having a team and people around you, advisors that can give you one, the right price and two, give you options so that way you know you're getting exactly what you want and not getting what someone else wants.

So I appreciate you guys and your time, your energy. It's the most important asset that we have. Let me know what questions, comments, concerns you have about any of this stuff. We love talking about it. I know this is a little different, a little bit new. It's a different direction and the real estate market's going from different direction over the last year, year and a half that when you started going. We just look forward to talking to more of you about it. So take care. Let me know. Questions, comments, concerns you have. I love to answer them. Talk to you soon.