Are you Following Your Pricing Cues?

Below are two pricing cues that I use to gauge my pricing on listings. In general, I think these are good guidelines to follow for Bucks County. All real estate is local, however, and these standards may be atypical of other areas. But for Bucks County, I look for:

• 10 showings in 10 days. If you haven’t received 10 showings in the first 10 days on the market (and there was no holiday to impact showings or something of that nature) you need to take a look at your marketing and pricing. First take a look at your marketing – do you have the maximum photos in the MLS (and are they good photos)? Is your listing on realtor.com, zillow.com, craigslist.org, and has it been syndicated to Trulia, Google, etc. Is your realtor.com listing enhanced with custom verbiage? How many hits is your listing getting online? If everything looks good on that end, you probably need to adjust the pricing. The first two weeks on the market are the time when your property is “hot.” Don’t waste them by under marketing or overpricing. You can’t sell it if Buyer’s aren’t looking at it.

• Lots of showings but no offers or interest. Now, this is a bit open to interpretation because Buyers are taking quite a bit of time to go from interest in a property to writing an offer. However, if you have 20 groups through your house, and it’s not on anyone’s short list, you need to adjust the pricing. It means your marketing is working, but you’re still priced just a touch high. The good news is that a price adjustment sometimes spurs these “on the fence” Buyers into action, and you may end up with a hot property with lots of interest.

If you have a lot of continued activity, generally positive response, and some nebulous Buyers waiting in the wings thinking about your home, stay the course for as long as seems reasonable. However, if you see prices starting to fall in the area, I would consider a price reduction in order to revitalize the listing and spur some offers.