As a San Antonio homeowner seeking to sell your home, you hope that your home will fetch the highest price possible, allowing you to reap maximum benefits. Moreover, a person or two working in the real estate industry may have planted a specific high figure in your head.
However, the real estate industry is generally volatile, even for solid markets like San Antonio. Therefore, you must have a robust pricing strategy to avoid overpricing or underpricing your home because each extreme has undesirable consequences on closing. Therefore, below are tips for pricing your San Antonio home for maximum profits.
Identify the Best Time to Sell
Seasonality is at the core of the real estate industry, meaning there is a time to buy and sell the property because the seasonality element affects prices. Therefore, as a prospective home seller, you should pay attention to the industry’s peak seasons to ensure you get the maximum fair price on your house.
Most home buyers in the US prefer to buy a home during spring because the weather is pleasant and their household members can acclimate to the market during the summer holiday.
Therefore, spring in San Antonio is potentially a seller’s market, and a listing with keyword phrases like “sell a home in San Antonio” will likely attract multiple potential buyers.
More buyers increase the chances that at least one is willing to pay a fair asking price.
Resources like the Texas Real Estate Research Center can help you navigate seasonality. However, seasonality, while important, seasonality is only one element in the entire market trends scheme.
Besides, you can also take the help of real estate companies, such as Houses 4 Texas which tend to purchase houses on cash. They visit your house, analyze the condition and neighborhood, and offer you the most suitable price to sell home San Antonio.
Optimize Your Listing Price for Search
The internet’s ubiquity and marketing potential mean that most home purchases begin online. Whether you hire a real estate agent to manage the sale or go the “for sale by owner” (FSBO) route, online marketing will come into play.
Most agents post listings on online websites to find potential buyers. Moreover, such online platforms are the first-place potential buyers go when purchasing a home.
Like any other search-driven website, these platforms utilize an algorithm that prioritizes specific keywords and search phrases. The listing price counts as a keyword for online real estate listings.
For example, if you price your home at USD 500000, the listing will appear on searches for homes within the USD 450,000-USD 500000 price range. However, a listing priced at USD 510000 will not appear in a similar search. Therefore, settle on a price likely to generate traffic for your listing.
Besides using century figures or price listings that can be rounded off to the next century figure (like 499000), avoid using weirdly specific numbers. A selling price like 389497 may attract curious buyers but no solid leads.
Use Comparative Market Analysis
A comparative market analysis (CMA) is a database-like tool that real estate agents use to estimate a home’s value or price. The CMAs generate their price estimates from similar houses within a given area sold within the last three months.
CMAs consider multiple factors, including that the houses used to generate the comparative data must be within a quarter-mile to a half-mile range from your property. Second, they must be equal to your house’s square mile footage or be at least 10% smaller or larger than your home’s square footage.
Other similarities to consider include the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, house levels, location, and lot size. A CMA allows you to establish the price range for houses within your area of San Antonio and set a reasonable price.
So, how do you access a CMA? Most real estate agents seeking to place listings on the market offer potential sellers a free CMA as an incentive to earn their business. So, you can access a CMA even if you would rather list your house as an FSBO. Alternatively, you can research online resources offering CMA tools to establish a price aggregate.
Although CMAs feature successfully closed listings, consider looking at expired ones too. Expired listings give insight into factors to avoid in your pricing strategy to prevent your house from overstaying on the market.
Consider Associated Fees
Besides the cost of preparing a house for sale, such as staging, cleaning, and repair, closing the sale also has associated costs.
For starters, if you hire an agent, you must pay them their cut from the proceeds of the house’s sale. Market trends place the current rate for real estate agents in San Antonio at 5.59% on average.
Besides agent fees, other arising expenses or fees include house inspection fees, loan origination fees, title insurance, valuation fees, HOA transfer, notary fees, recording fees, and documentary stamp fees.
House sellers typically use the buyer’s downpayment on the house to settle closing costs and the real estate agent’s fees. Although the closing costs often fall on the seller, you can negotiate to split the costs with the buyer. Regardless, factoring such costs in your price listing allows you to set a fair price that will cover the costs and still make you happy.
Hire A House Inspector
Most buyers hire post-sale house inspectors to ensure the house is in good condition before closing. Moreover, they can use the house inspection report as a negotiating tool should the report reveal any undisclosed issue with the house.
However, you can take the initiative and hire a house inspector before listing your home. Hiring a house inspector beforehand ensures no surprises arm-twist you at the negotiating table.
A house inspector’s report gives you confidence in your house’s structural integrity and empowers you to set a fair price without fear of being blindsided. Moreover, you can use the report as a negotiation tool to convince the seller to settle on a desirable price.
Be Flexible
Selling a house is a long process; given the real estate market’s flexibility, anything can change. So, while you may have a desired price point in mind, be open to revising your listing within reason when necessary. You can negotiate secondary terms like the payment plan and deposit amount to compensate for the price change.
Focus on The Appraised Value
A stark price difference between the house’s appraisal value and the selling price is a red flag for most buyers. Therefore, consider setting a price closer to the appraised value, considering other factors like market trends and the CMA report. Moreover, you can seek a second opinion if you feel the appraisal value given is wanting.
Conclusion
The price you set is crucial in maximizing your house’s value. Therefore, consider using the tips above to settle on a fair price that will keep everyone happy and maximize the proceeds from your sale.
