Your Upper Marlboro, Clinton, and Washington, DC Home Specialist

When I meet with Sellers on listing presentations, I offer them a lot of advice to get their homes sold on time and at the very best price. Analyzing all the advice I give them, if I had to list one as the most important; it would be not to overprice your home. I make it clear to all my potential Sellers that it is their responsibility to set the list price for their home; but it should fall within the price range I provide to them. I will provide them with a well defined price range to make the decision. However, throughout my presentation, I try to make sure they understand it is the Buyers that will ultimately decide how much they are willing to pay for the home. Of course, it is hard to convince the average Sellers that their home cannot be listed for more than the one next door, the one around the corner or across the street. It is just human nature for Sellers to think their home is worth more and in better condition than one next door, the one around the corner or across the street because it is difficult to get Sellers to look at their home objectively. That is why, I devote a significant part of my listing presentation to describing how an overpriced home can cost them money and time in the long run. Not to mention the headaches and frustrations they will encounter when they find out how other agents will treat their home if it is overpriced, such as: (a) using their home to help sell other neighborhood homes, (b) do not include their home on the list of homes to show their clients, (c) stigmatize their home as an overpriced home in the neighborhood, (d) use their home as an example in intra-/inter-office discussions on overpriced homes, and (e) even if the Sellers get an offer at the overpriced value more than likely the appraisal will not support it. I spend a lot of time selecting good comparable sales to arrive at the suggested price range. Once I have a selected price range, I will leave it with the potential Sellers overnight and return the next day to help them define the list price. When I entered the real estate profession in 1993, my broker always insisted that the listing presentation be a 2-day process. The first day is used to provide the potential Sellers with information about the market and to inspect their home, and the second day to write the listing agreement.

In today’s market, I no longer use the 2-day listing presentations. Competition for listings have become so great and the technology used by agents have made the 2-day approach obsolete. Sellers are now interviewing several agents in a single day and deciding the agent to list with on the same day. In order to be competitive in today’s market, I have revised my listing presentations accordingly.

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