If your home is overpriced and doesn’t receive an offer during its first week on the market, the market is telling you something: The price is too high.
In our market, the first week is critical. That’s when a new listing gets the most attention, the most serious buyers are watching, and you have the best opportunity to create urgency and competition. Well priced listings get MULTIPLE offers in the first week. If you don’t get an offer, don’t wait three or four weeks to react.
The longer an overpriced home sits on the market, the more leverage shifts from the seller to the buyer. But here’s something else that’s important:
Not every price reduction should be the same. If you had a lot of showings, busy open houses, and buyers showing interest—but no offers—you may be close to the right price. In that situation, a relatively small adjustment may be enough to get buyers off the fence.
But if you’ve had very few showings, empty open houses, and almost no buyer interest, that’s a completely different message. You’re probably not a little overpriced.
You’re significantly overpriced. And that’s when you need to be bold. A $10,000 or $20,000 reduction on a home that’s $100,000 or $200,000 overpriced isn’t going to solve the problem.
The size of the price reduction needs to reflect what the market is actually telling you. One of the biggest mistakes sellers make is chasing the market down with a series of small price reductions. Also, don’t make small reductions just to show up as a price change in MLS. This strategy never works.
Price it correctly—or correct the price quickly. Because the goal isn’t simply to reduce the price. The goal is to get buyers excited enough to make an offer
