Chitownproperty

Realty Times – In a Down Market, Pricing Needs to Get Out Ahead of the Curve

The hardest part about a declining or stagnant market is deciding where to set your asking price. In an “up” market, this was easy: you could look at recent sales of similar homes and set your price a little higher. But when things are moving in the opposite direction, how do you know where to start?

In the book Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times, author Gary Keller says the same logic applies. Sellers in a down market have to get ahead of declining values and set their asking prices where they will attract offers, and this often means lower than recent comparable sales. As Bob Hunt says in his review of the book for Realty Times, “If you fail to get ahead of the market when the market is in decline, the consequence is not that you simply receive a lower price; the consequence is that you don’t get a sale at all.”