Attention all sellers of Metro Atlanta real estate! Give us a moment to share with you exactly why pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly is more critical now than ever before.
Prices are being driven by a persistently tight supply of homes for sale, and demand remains high, but over the summer, mortgage rates began increasing and unemployment remains problematic. Housing is improving, but it is not without challenges.
Buyers are desperate to find the right home at the right price. It's not uncommon these days to see multiple offers on the same Metro Atlanta home. Prices are being driven up by these multiple offers, however, there is a down side to these rapid price increases.
Pricing Your Metro Atlanta Home Correctly – How The Appraisal May Be Affected
Pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly is critical because it must appraise or the sale falls apart before the ink even dries on the purchase agreement. If you over-price your home, it most likely won't appraise for your selling price, even if you do get two or three buyers bidding on the home.
When this happens, one of two things happens. Either the seller comes down on price or the buyer comes to the closing with more money, which they usually don't have.
In reality, who really wins in this situation? No one. The buyer walks away to look for another home, and you have to put your home back on the market, usually at a lower price. Once the lower appraisal comes in, you must disclose what it appraised for, and there you are, wishing you had just started off pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly to start with.
We're seeing sellers over-pricing homes because there is a lack of inventory, trying to take advantage of a market condition. This tactic will usually backfire.
The real estate market in the Metro Atlanta is moving so fast that most buyers know what things are selling for. If you over-price your home, you're just helping your neighbor down the street sell his home.
Yes, homes are selling fast, but at the same time, pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly will help you find a buyer faster. Otherwise, if you over-price your home, you'll wind up being on the "skip it, it's over-priced" list.
Pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly will also help the market not wind up like we all saw before — a bunch of over-priced homes for sale and no one buying them. That's what starts the proverbial real estate bubbles.
When your home just sits on the market for weeks and months because it's over-priced, you're also giving your home a stigma that's hard to overcome. And then dropping the price to where it probably should have been to start with just makes people ask, "What's wrong with it?"
Do yourself (and everyone else) a favor. Pricing your Metro Atlanta home correctly is not only important, it's really a must-do thing if you really want to sell.
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