How do you price a home in today’s competitive Florida real estate markets of Orlando, Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville?

How do you price a home in today’s competitive Florida real estate markets of Orlando, Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville?

Keep it simple. Go to Realtor.com, Homes.com, Remax.com, Getmoreoffers.com or Zillow.com. Gather “listed” (not “sold”) data/comparables. In today’s market, “sold” data can be skewed as much as 6% because Realtors® don’t confirm whether or not the seller has paid closing costs (called seller concessions) when they do a CMA analysis (comparable market analysis). CMAs are based on sold data. As well, sold data has short sales and bank owned which is not necessarily your direct competition as many Realtors will not work short sales with buyers.

While my pricing advice is sound, the big unknown in Florida is the appraisal hurdle. That in itself is a huge reason to take my pricing advice.

I suggest opening an Excel spreadsheet or start writing down where your competition is priced. Get an idea of price per square foot living area (list price divided by living area square footage). These “comparables” will give you a range of what’s on the market that has not sold. This will establish a base price to then evaluate further. You may need to adjust for items that your comparables have or don’t have such as pool, upgrades, etc. Be sure you do keep in mind that in today’s market upgrades are worth 50% of their value. Unfortunately, in a buyer’s market, everything is discounted.

For this example, say your base price after your analysis is $210,000. Now let’s fine tune your price to make it attract offers. Because this market is a buyer’s market, you need to price your home right where you would if a cash buyer was negotiating with you. In paragraph 2 above, you established your base price at $210,000 using nearby comparables. Then ask yourself this question. If a cash buyer was negotiating with me right now, how far would I go down in price assuming that the buyer was represented by a Realtor and you were paying a 3% commission…You pay no listing commission with flat fee.

If that figure is $190,000, then add 2% back for closing costs (doc stamps on deed and seller’s title policy) or $190,000 x 1.02% = $193,800 and $5,700 for commission. Your MLS price would be $190,000 + $3,800 + $5,700 = $199,500. Remember not to advertise a lower price than your MLS listed price of $199,500 because of MLS rules. Possibly add an additional $1,400 for the cost of our ADDvantage Success™ flat fee plan which is a hybrid/full-service plan where I help you set the price, negotiate all offers and the close the deal.

I believe it is better to price a home under your competition and leave no room for negotiations than to price it in line with all of your competition. Your “competition” is still listed and not sold. So what they are doing is not working. The bottom line is, better priced homes get shown more. It is far more desirable to get a buyer interested in your home and buy it that have 20 showing and no offers. That means they used your property as a comparison tool and bought something else.

When I receive Realtor showing requests for my ADDvantage Success flat fee MLS clients that are priced to sell, I coach that buyer’s agent to bring their buyer’s offer in at full-price. It helps them save time and they love that type of assistance because to them, it’s al about getting a deal done and getting paid!

In this crazy Florida market of 2009, the name of the game is Realtor showings.

Call me any time about how to list with us in the any one of 27 Florida MLS Boards using our flat fee MLS listing plans.

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