Pricing a Home
REM # F652
By Ilyce R. Glink
Summary: How much should you sell your home for? Pricing a home is not easy but it pays to look at what the market prices are. Remember, you can always pick a price, see how it does, and reprice the home later if necessary.
Q: I have a house for sale and I almost sold it a few months back. The reason the sale fell through is that the buyer couldn’t get the financing he needed. He has too many outstanding obligations that he thought were concealed from the mortgage company.
I have the house up for sale now and I am asking $58,000, which is what the house appraised out for. The house next door sold for $56,000 a couple of months ago. I was told that appraisals are valid for 6 months.
Should I stick to my price or have the house reappraised? I am thinking I should stay with that price.
A: I'm trying to decide if you lucked out because the bank found out that your prospective buyer was concealing debts and couldn't afford the mortgage payments on a $58,000 loan.
As I write this, today's interest rates are still below 6 percent on a 30-year mortgage. A mortgage of $58,000 would cost approximately $375 per month, plus the costs of real estate taxes and insurance. You would need an income of about $20,000 per year to support this mortgage.
That’s well below the median income, but it's obviously more than this guy can afford. Because you found out right away, you were able to continue to market the property.
As far as pricing goes, it sounds like your property is priced at about what everything else in the neighborhood is selling for. I'd keep your price the same, but widen your reach in terms of the marketing you're doing for the property. If you don’t get an offer in the next month or so, you can reevaluate your list price at that time.
NOTE: This column is distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022. This column may not be resold, reprinted, resyndicated or redistributed without written permission from the publisher.
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