Position Your Home Starting With PRICE!

What Is Positioning?

Everyone wants to sell their house for top dollar, but you don’t do it by pricing your house too high—even in a seller’s market. Rather, you do it by marketing and positioning your house for sale correctly. When pricing your home, listing at a higher price or above market value could actually hurt the sale of your property. 

If you want to sell your home for top dollar, pricing it incorrectly is not how you do it. But what is positioning? When we sell your house, we need to properly position it to attract the most ideal buyer for your home—and there are several ways to do this. Think about it this way: when you go to the store to buy something off the rack or the shelf, you take into consideration its packaging, its pricing, and any current offers or sales. It’s no different in real estate. 

People who are shopping for a home do exactly the same thing, whether on their own or with an agent. The key is emotionally connecting your home to the ideal buyer while simultaneously creating urgency around it. This is why staging is important—but that’s a whole other video.

Pricing It Right

The most important part of marketing and selling your home is the price tag. This is because that’s the first thing that buyers are going to see. Price positioning is pricing very strategically, and it’s a huge part of your marketing plan. 

Pricing your home too high can lead to additional time on the market, which could also lead to lowball offers. When a new home gets listed on the market, it will get a lot of interest. Your best chance at selling it is going to be within those first two weeks, as most buyers don’t want to miss out. 

It’s this buzz that creates urgency among the buyers. They know that new listings get a ton of traction, and if it’s priced well, it’s bound to go fast. This is why pricing your home correctly from the beginning is so important. 

Negotiation Room

People want things they can’t have, and it is no different in real estate. Have you ever wanted something more because it wasn’t available or it’s really hard to get? The longer your home sits on the market, buyers will begin to assume that they have more room for negotiation. 

Typically, after about 30 days on the market, buyers may start to perceive that something is wrong with the home—and they’ll try to negotiate on price. Which house would you be more likely to negotiate on: one that’s been on the market for six months, or one that just came onto the market? 

This is why pricing your home too high in the beginning can hurt you in the long run. Remember, we don’t create the market, but we can adjust to it. 

Searching Online

Another thing you need to know about pricing is how buyers are searching for homes online. Price point is the number one criteria for how buyers are searching online, and they tend to be grouped in increments of $25,000 to $50,000. For example, people will search for homes for up to $500,000, $525,000, $550,000, and so on. 

You want to take this into consideration when coming up with your initial listing price. Is it worth listing the home at $604,000, or should you list it at $599,000? Probably the latter, because there’ll be more buyers searching up to that $600,000 price point. This will then bring more attention. 

Description And Listing Remarks

Now that we understand the pricing a little better, the next way that we position your home is in the description. We want your home to appeal to the most ideal buyer, and the words used to market a property are essential. It’s important that that description speaks directly to the ideal buyer.

I personally put a lot of thought into writing a property description, and I also work with the sellers to make sure that it holds true to them as well. For example, if you’re selling an investment property, those remarks should be more focused on the numbers—because that’s what matters to an investor. This will be different if you’re selling a single-family home.

For a single-family home, remarks should be more focused on school districts, aesthetics, local parks, and amenities. Those buyers are typically going to be a little more focused on lifestyle. Again, you want to speak directly to your ideal buyer. 

Strategic Marketing

The third way to position your house for sale properly is in its marketing. You want to advertise your home in places where the ideal buyer is searching. A good agent is going to chase the ideal buyer versus just throwing a sign in the yard and listing it on the MLS. 

With websites and social media, you can advertise directly to the most interested buyers for your home. Your agent should be actively promoting and advertising your home on social media and Google versus just waiting for the right buyer to come along—even in a seller’s market.

Getting Top Dollar On Your Home Sale

I hope this video has shown you the importance of positioning your home for sale. As you can see, marketing plays a huge role in getting top dollar for your home—if that’s what your goal is, and it should be. If you’re interested in learning more, I am happy to answer any questions that you may have. I help people sell their homes every day, and I would be happy to help you, too. Feel free to reach out to me and I’ll be happy to connect!

For more information on the Portland Metro area and real estate in general, be sure to subscribe to my channel so you never miss an episode of my show. Stay tuned to see what I feature next!