Most people share the same experience when they purchased their home. We all bid against lots of other potential buyers, probably paid more for the house than it was worth and in the end we won! But have you stopped and wondered why it was that we were willing to pay more than the other buyers? Simply put, we shared the same values as the sellers. We liked that style house, in that neighborhood and what the sellers did to it. Did you know that in real estate the value of a home is described as “The Most That A Person With Means To Buy Is Willing To Pay For A Specific Home”. So the value of your home is dependent on getting a person with your values to look at the home and make an offer. If the person with your values who was willing to pay the most never looks at your home, then the maximum potential of your transaction (Sales Price) can never be met. This brings to light an important point. There is a huge difference between the listing price, the price your house sells for and the actual value of your home.

Let’s look at the typical buyer. They get qualified for a specific purchase price, let’s say 800,000. However they usually want a payment that is lower than they qualify for so they self-select to look at homes that in this example are in the 700,000 range. They also know that they want for example at least 2200 square feet. When they search, they search for homes that are under 700,000 and that are greater than 2200 square feet. If your house is in the 2200 square foot range and listed at 750,000 these buyers will never see it. Remember that they had the ability to buy all the way to 800,000. Now look back to when you purchased your home again. Like was mentioned earlier you probably looked at homes that were less than you could afford, but when you found the house that you loved, you were the highest offer and probably well above list price.

From the Market Analysis provided you can see that not only is each zip code its own separate market, but each zip code is further broken down into sub markets called Quartiles. Without getting to technical what we are saying is that the market is further broken down into houses that fall into four different size (square footage) groups. Houses in the 4th (top) group are the normally the most expensive per square foot (they are a higher quality construction). Houses in the first (bottom) group are normally the second most expensive per square foot (this makes sense as much of the cost is in the property). The middle two groups vary. These statistics may vary in areas where land is supper cheap or supper expensive.

So to maximize your transaction you need to get all the buyers looking at houses in your similar square footage to look at your house. Only then are you sure that the one that has the same values as you and which will offer you the most actually sees it and makes an offer. Real Estate agents use sold comps to tell you what your house is worth, but this does not tell you what price you need to list it at to get your ideal buyer. To do this you need to know what the listing price of the homes similar in square footage to yours were listed at just before they were swooped in on, bid up and taken off the market. You need to know the Listing Price of Absorbed Homes in your quartile. This is the Ideal Listing Price and we are the only company that readily pulls this data and provides it to all of our Partner Agents. Contact us now and see how we help seller get more for their homes”