How to Sell Your Home for the Highest Price

These 3 Things Can Help You Sell Your Home for the Highest Price

Planning for Profits

Selling your home for the highest price is much more science than it is an art.  With a little planning, and maybe even some forethought, you can increase the sales price of your home.  When you think it’s time to “Sell My Home” there are some key items to consider.

Yes, there are certain “markets” that are better for selling your home than others.  This is usually called a sellers market, and that usually means that there are more buyers in the market than there are homes for sale.

In a sellers market, home buyer demand drives up home prices as multiple buyers are making offers on desirable homes for sale.  A bidding war ensues, and the highest bidder usually wins the offer, the seller always wins.

What do you do when we are not in an aggressive sellers market?  You have to create demand for your home so that you attract more buyers, and your home stands out from similar homes, in similar neighborhoods.

3 Ways To Sell Your Home For the Highest Price

1. List Low, Sell High

This might sound like a no-brainer, and yes, most real estate agents will show you their 150 point plan on how they are going to market your home, but the logic of pricing your home right eludes most sellers.  It is almost as automatic as human nature to try to list your home for as much as you can, just in case a buyer tries to negotiate your price lower (which you would do if you were buying, right?).

However, this is exactly how to NOT get the highest price for your home.  As a savvy seller, your goal is not to “get the highest price”, but more importantly you want to create the highest demand.  The price you sell your home for is not so much what you put on the price tag, but what a potential buyer is will pay for it.

If you want to sell for the highest price, you need as many buyers as you can to create a multiple bidding scenario.  Think about eBay.com How did eBay become one of the most successful websites of all times?  By creating bidding wars on everyday (usually previously owned) products by allowing customers to submit a “bid” to buy.

When buyers go to the internet to start searching for homes, they start by looking at the area they want to live in, bedrooms, bathrooms, maybe school district, then they sort by sales price.

Homes with the lowest price for that area will ALWAYS get more attention and offers than the highest priced home on that list.  Come on now, be honest, that’s how you would do it if you were a buyer.

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By pricing your home too high, you create a number of compounding negative traffic factors that could ultimately result in you having to settle for a lower sales price out of a lack of demand for your property.

When buyers look on the internet at homes for sale, they are also looking at how many days the home has been on the market.  There are only 2 reasons why a home stays on the market too long.

  1. It’s overpriced for the area
  2. There’s something wrong with it

You don’t want to be in either one of those camps, do you?  Absolutely not.  What’s even worse, is reducing the price!  When you see a home with a price reduction, you know it was priced too high, and if you were willing to reduce the price, maybe you will reduce it a little more?

Price your home 3-5% below market, and trust me, you will have many more offers, and if you’re lucky, a bidding war will ensue, driving the sales price up to what the most interested buyer is willing to pay to purchase your home.

This strategy works in most real estate markets, so be open to it, and consult with your Real Estate Agent about whether or not this will work in your local market.  I’ll bet they say YES!

2. Make a Great First Impression

California Real Estate Agent David Feldberg published this incredibly informative and quite innovative collaboration of 24 Real Estate Experts from around the industry that were asked this question – “How can you increase your home’s value for $5,000 or less?

You can absolutely increase your home’s value with a little strategic upgrading and improving.  The money you invest into your home is not necessarily going to result in the highest price when you sell it, but it definitely helps if you’re smart about it.

Remember, your home is “new” to a potential buyer.  This means that the less “lived in” your home looks, the greater the appeal.  It doesn’t take much to give your home that “new home look” by making small investments in areas where buyers are basing their decisions.

This article includes all the ideas you can possibly need to understand the psychology of what buyers are looking for when they pull up to the home, and walk through the front door.

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.  A WOW first impression will bring more traffic (with good pictures), more offers, and a higher sales price.

Along these lines, another way to make a great first impression is to have your home professionally staged.  There are companies that will send out a professional home decorator to either bring in all new home furnishings, or arrange your existing furnishings to make the home look like something you would see on a home make 0ver show on TV.

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3.  Keeping Up with the Joneses

Making a small investment ($5,000 or less) to upgrade landscaping, bathrooms, kitchens, or paint and carpet is not always enough if your home has been lived in for a while, and has a lot of deferred maintenance.

Deferred maintenance is an “industry term” among real estate professionals and appraisers that essentially means that your home is worn down and beat up.  You could be throwing thousands of dollars away by trying to sell your home as is when your neighbors house “looks” much nicer, and newer.

Using a home improvement loan to do a little bit more than a “minor repairs” could bring you tens of thousands of dollars more from homebuyers looking for a move-in ready home with that new home smell.

Related Reading:  Home Improvement Loans offered by FHA

This strategy is a bit more tricky, and requires research and input from an experienced Real Estate Agent to maximize the return on your investment.  This strategy is powerful, but only when it’s appropriate for your neighborhood.

If you remodel your home to make it the nicest home in the neighborhood, you probably will not get the same return as if your home was the most “lived in” home in a nice neighborhood, and you simply brought it up to the same standard as the rest of the homes in the area.

I will say this one more time, this strategy works in many real estate markets, so be open to it, and consult with your Real Estate Agent about whether or not this will work in your local market.

About the Author

Scott Schang

A 20+ year veteran of the Mortgage and Real Estate industry, I am passionate about educating and empowering consumers. I have been writing about consumer protection issues and making sense of complicated real estate and mortgage topics on this website since 2007

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  • Great article, lots of good stuff in here!