They say you can’t price a home too low. I respectfully disagree. We are experiencing an intensely hot seller’s market here in Westchester. Where I mainly focus, in Larchmont and Mamaroneck, homes are barely trickling on and there are HUNDREDS of buyers clamoring for inventory. Sellers are accepting offers many hundreds of thousands over the ask price, listings are clocking 70-90 showings in three days and private showings have started to feel like open houses.
I have been working on my latest listing since last summer. It’s an estate and needed some TLC so we spend the last few months bringing it back to life. Luckily, my sellers agreed to all of my suggestions: replacing carpets, pulling up a full floor of asbestos tile in the basement, removing wallpaper and repainting the interior of the home in its entirety. It’s been a rewarding and tiring transformation.
Two weeks ago a home around the corner listed. Almost an exact comp. On paper it was the same house. But as I walked through I noticed a few things: theirs did not feel as well maintained and the house was jam packed at all times with showing on top of showing. A terrible way to view a house you are expected to offer 25%+ over ask on.
My sellers and I quickly regrouped. How do we change our strategy? I always tell my sellers that we really never know list price until sometimes hours before. It’s too important to utilize the week by week market intel. So here we were, a day before listing and we took the price up by over $100k thousand dollars than we had planned just the week before. I was able to find out from the lovely listing agent at the comparable home that they had 90+ showings and 22 offers. How do I help my sellers avoid the frenzied showings and eliminate the bottom half of those 22 offers? We pushed the price much higher than originally discussed.
Back in the summer we had discussed a list price of $1.299m. The house needed work, we weren’t sure what the market would be like and we were using comps from the previous spring. With the new, local intel we chose to list at $1,449,000. We capped showings at 2 parties per time slot. We booked 72 showings in 5 days and received 11 offers. I can’t say how much our accepted offer is quite yet but I do believe we captured a higher number with our new, pivoted strategy. I am proud of us: for my sellers for trusting me, for having faith in myself to push, for my pricing team for cheering this decision on.
The nuances matter. This is my client’s livelihood and future. $100,000 matters. And sometimes… you CAN price too low and leave money on the table.
