For Sale By Owner

Why is it so difficult for by owner sellers to price a home correclty? Although a home is a commodity just like any other, homes tend to take on a life of their own once you have lived in them for a number of years. After all, this is where you first lived after getting married, or raised your children, or made improvements by hand and even added an addition by yourself, etc. It’s hard to separate years of living from the home itself. Of course your ‘home’ should be worth a little bit more (or a lot) that your neighbors. You’ve bled, sweated and cried there. You know all that’s gone into the place to make it ‘better’ than the others.

But to sell a home or any other commodity you have to take yourself out of the equation. Put yourself in the buyers shoes because that’s who’s going to help determine the actual market value of your home. For buyers, who generally know nothing about the history of the property, other than what’s printed on a flyer or posted on the web, your house it just one of many to choose from. Price being equal, the house with most square footage, bedrooms, baths, amenitites and best location and condition is the one that will command the market. As much as it may pain you to realize it, noone else cares how much time and work you put into the home if they can buy a similar home for less money.

In market’s like this, price is king and the buyer’s are in the drivers seat when it comes to home pricing. Gone are the days when deciding which offer to select was the biggest problem a home seller encountered. Today’s FSBO, more than ever, has to be market sensitve when it comes to pricing their home correctly.