Should I reduce my price or update my home?

So your Realtor is asking you for a price reduction… You’ve had some buyer showings and the feedback has consistently been that the home needs updating. So what do you do? Well, you can reduce the price in hopes of being the best deal in the neighborhood. Then, maybe Buyers will look past the problem areas because the home will be such a good value. Or you can leave your price alone and spend the money on making the updates. Decisions, Decisions… The Miles & Smith Real Estate Group deals with these critical decisions every day. The answer to the question is twofold. Consider this… It’s a fact that over 90% of all Buyers in today’s very competitive market start their searches on the internet. If you are considering a price reduction, you’ll need to reduce your price enough to reposition your listing in a new price category search. For example, if you are currently priced at $249,900 and then reduce to $244,900, you are still attracting the same $249,900 Buyer demographic. Ultimately, you would need to do a price reduction to the $224,900-$229,900 range in order to grab the attention of a totally different Buyer. $20,000-$25,000 is a lot of money!! Think of all the wonderful updating you could do for that amount… The Miles & Smith Real Estate Group has experts on staff that can help you transform your home into something modern and beautiful on a limited budget. See example below… This property was priced at $219,900. Ultimately, to capture the attention of a different buyer and renew interest in the home, we would have needed to reduce the price down to the $204,900-$209,900 range. The feedback we had received was that the home was too small and needed too much updating for the price. Buyers were overwhelmed at the prospect and as a result continued to walk away. So, instead of doing a price reduction, the Sellers gave The Miles & Smith Real Estate Group a budget of $5000 to directly address these concerns. With that amount we were able to paint the pickled oak cabinets white, spray the countertops a neutral color, install all new stainless appliances, paint the living room, remove the wallpaper border, paint the dining room, replace the dated vinyl in master bath and have our professional interior designer Candice Hutchison beautifully stage and accessorize the home. After the updating was complete, we re-listed with new photography and accepted a contract within 3 days!!! So what does this tell us…? The lesson here is that although buyers in this tough market are definitely looking for a great value, they are also looking for a home that they can be wowed by and fall in love with. And since purchasing a home is very much an emotional long term investment, homes that present themselves as modern and updated have a much better chance of capturing the place in the Buyer’s heart that says this is “Home…” We have many more examples of homes just like this that were on the market with another agent. We took the listing when it expired and brought in our team of experts and the home SOLD very shortly after we listed it. Visit www.TheMilesTeam.com for more information on selling or leasing your home.