The premise of this article is that Smyrna is in a seller's market, set your price high and sell at top dollar. Simple enough. That sounds like common sense. However, for various reasons, lots of times due to lack of understanding of the market, sellers are not succeeding at that. You need to know the buyer and having an agent work with you on selling strategy can help immensely. This could mean spending a few thousand on cosmetic upgrades and some staging to snag the buyer for a high price that would have ignored your property, even at a lower price.
According to an article in Smyrnavinings.com, and also similar information in other real estate sites, trailing 12 month home sales for Smyrna are at a five year high. At the same time, active home listings in 2013 and 2014 are at a five-year low. The graphs Aaron Hofman provides on Smyrnavinings.com go back to 2007, however if you look at real estate sites, the graphs go back farther to show that the inventory is at an all-time-low for Smyrna.
Furthermore, there is so little inventory in Smyrna that everything going on the market that is a decent home is getting snatched off the market almost immediately, sometimes in bidding wars. In fact, if no homes came on the market, homes would be cleared out in three months! I'm talking homes, condos, townhomes - everything! That has never happened before in the Smyrna market, even during 2006-2007. Prices were high, but there was also a lot of inventory. Now, prices are increasing rapidly, sales are almost as high as 2006-2007, and inventory is low. This is uncharted territory in Smyrna - and to call it a seller's market is an understatement - so sellers: don't sell yourself short!
Smyrna is a desirable place to move to. Typically low inventory, and a desirable market leads to bidding wars and prices going up, and they are: Year over year prices are up around 10%, and thanks to a couple years of this, we're almost back to the peak price for Smyrna homes before the national housing crash, with much less available on the market so prices will keep going up.
So, when a market is modulated by lack of inventory and not prices, you'd think sellers would jump on that and take advantage. Yet, strangely, sometimes comparable homes are listed more than 25% apart, with both homes in great condition inside, and both typically selling quickly. Sometimes, the more expensive one selling before the under-priced home for simple cosmetic reasons or other trivial matters. One of the sellers just ripped themselves off. No bidding war is going to make up 25% of the price.
I saw a house the other day sell for around $320k when a similar home had just sold for $350k in three weeks. There was very little different between them. The $320k house went under contract in two days because the buyers smelled a bargain and weren't going to wait around for a bidding war. What if the sellers had listed for what the other one sold for. Is three weeks really that bad?
Why are some sellers listing low? Of course, in the real-estate in general, everyone has different situations and not everyone can list top-dollar for personal reaons. There are distressed home sales, for instance. Some peoples' jobs just re-located out of states. There's a myriad of other reasons. However, those represent only a portion of the homes. What about the rest?
Then, of course, some homes listed too low were for-sale-by-owner. In a quickly increasing market like Smyrna, it makes perfect sense why those sellers may not know what their house is worth. It's almost never worth it to sell by owner for a high-end home. You become an easy target to shrewd buyers and unscrupulous investors.
Yet, that still leaves some homes selling too low unaccounted for.
Another issue is not understanding the move-in-ready buyer, and not listening to the agent.
Out of curiosity, I talked with a few agents to get explanations for homes that I saw listed too low based on comps, and I'm now sharing what I heard with you. Often, it was just the seller refusing to listen to the agent that they could sell for more. They just didn't understand, especially coming out of a recession, how their house could be worth so much and got scared.
However, one case that stuck out in my mind could probably be filed under "how not to sell your house" about six months ago: It was a five bedroom home that should have been listed around $450k based on comps in that neighborhood. However, it was listed around $350k and was on the market for three months. That's almost unheard of in Smyrna's market nowadays. At the same time, smaller four bedroom homes of similar style but with less square footage in the neighboring subdivision were selling in days or weeks for more than it was listed for. They had the same builder, were the same age, had the same sized yards, had less baths, less rooms, were significantly smaller and were selling for more and in less time. What was going on?
The photos gave away the answer in this case: The house looked hideously outdated and horribly decorated inside, including some pretty disgusting paint colors. The agent recommended some cosmetic improvements that would have totaled a few thousand. The seller didn't listen and ultimately ended up putting the house up for rent when it didn't sell.
Why didn't some buyer come in who wants a "fixer-upper" that he or she could gain instant equity with a few splashes of paint? A buyer that could see past the ugliness. High-end buyers are often looking for something very specific and move-in ready. They aren't going to rip themselves off, but they also aren't going to buy something that isn't aesthetically pleasing to them just to save money. Sometimes, you can disqualify yourself out of a bunch of buyers just for having something that looks ugly. For investors, the house probably wasn't cheap enough compared to foreclosures.
Furthermore, you don't have to guess at what you need to get top-dollar. Your agent will tell you. You just have to trust him or her and be willing to do the small things an agent recommends in most cases. Every situation is different, so that example above may not describe what you need to do to get top dollar. Your agent will help you with that. Then, the buyer that would have just passed over your house may sign a contract with you for more than you ever imagined you could sell your house for.
This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.
The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?
