There are several ways to establish how much to sell your house. It is best to use multiple methods in your pricing strategy.
Determine the Appraisal Value of the House
Valuation is a great tool for finding out the value of your home. Hire an appraiser to assess the entire house and establish its value. They value the house depending on its location, size, features, condition, and sale price to similar properties in the market.
The appraisal value is an estimate and does not have to be your final price. However, if done by a professional who is well conversant with the real estate market in your area, it can be a good presentation of a competitive price range.
Check the Estimated Value of Your House Using Online Valuation Tools
There are numerous online home value estimator tools you can use to guide you on how much to sell your house for. They are designed to use machine learning algorithms to assess and compare your house specifications against a wide range of publicly-available real estate data.
Therefore, you will be required to provide some details about your house, including property size, home square footage, number of rooms, location, qualities and features, property tax valuation report, price history of the property, etc.
Do a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA)
The CMA is the most commonly used tool by real estate agents for setting the price of a house. It is a comprehensive real estate report for a given area. Real estate professionals use it to compare your property against other properties.
The comparison is based on the size and age of the property, locations, amenities, upgrades, number of rooms, and conditions of the house.
If you are already working with a real estate agent, they may do the CMA for you for free. However, if not, they may charge $100-$250 to analyze you.
Ask Your Real Estate Agent
Setting the sale price for your house can be a complex and confusing process for individuals. Therefore, working with a real estate agent to determine the most suitable price or price range is a good idea.
Homeowners tend to overestimate the value of the house, resulting in overpricing. However, real estate agents are more objective and will help you set a price that reflects the house’s true value while enabling the property to sell faster. They also have the tools, expertise, and real estate market information to set the right price.
Study What Is Happening in the Market
Even as you work with a real estate agent, do your own research on the market trends. Visit various listing services and check out what similar properties are selling for. How long have they been in the market? What is their price history?
Also, read real estate news and professional articles specific to your area and country. It will help you notice any change in trends, such as the transition from sellers to buyer’s market and vice versa.
Then discuss your findings with your real estate agent to ensure you agree on the most suitable pricing strategy.
Ask Other Sellers How They Set Their Price
If you know other homeowners in your area who have listed or recently sold their houses, talk to them to find out how they went about pricing.
Ask them to share any insights they might have gained or mistakes they made that you can learn from. Compare how much they listed the house for and the final sale price and determine what influenced variance—if any.
Set a Price That Helps Your House to Stand Out
Don’t set a price at which so many other properties have been listed. It makes it difficult for your house to stand out from similar properties in the area.
Rather, look at the current real estate inventory and identify the price range for properties similar to yours. Then, identify a price point that is not crowded. This is referred to as price banding.
Even so, avoid obscure pricing. For instance, list the house at $299,999 rather than listing it at $300,000. Similarly, instead of listing at $347,764, go for $347,000 or $345,000. To improve the visibility of your property online, list the house within the popular buyer search ranges.
For instance, if you list the house at $203,000 yet popular ranges for similar houses is $150,000-$200,000, potential buyers will not see your house in their search results.
Factor in Selling Costs
The process of selling a house is costly. There are several costs involved that eat into your proceeds. While some are optional, others are mandatory.
If you want to make a profit on your sale, you want to factor in the real estate transaction costs in the sale price. However, if they inflate the price of the house too much, they will reduce the competitiveness of the house in the market.
Some costs to consider include staging, real estate agent commission/realtor fee, marketing, repairs and upgrades, prorated property tax, capital gains tax, HOA fees, mortgage repayments and interest rate, escrow fees, and amount owed.
Type of Sale
Most of the strategies discussed above work best for a traditional sale. However, for certain types of sales, such as foreclosure and short sales, you may have limits on how much you can sell the house for. The court may dictate the sale process in the case of a short sale or lender in the case of a foreclosure.
Even if you have leeway to establish and negotiate to set the price, with or without the help of a listing agent, a majority of the proceeds from the sale will go towards debt payment.
In both scenarios, setting a price to maximize profits is not the priority as long as the final sale price is enough to offset or pay off a significant portion of the mortgage balance.
Another option would be to get a cash offer on the house as is. The cash buyer assesses the house and determines how much to offer you for it. If the house has any issues, they offer to buy at a lower price than your listing price to enable them to shoulder the problems.
However, if it is in good condition, they assess the prevailing housing market to determine a suitable buying price. They may likely buy at fair market value.