How realtors determine the ideal listing price of your home.

When the time comes for someone to sell their home, one of the first things that homeowner(s) will want to know is, what is my house worth?

The price you list your home at is often critical when it comes to getting it sold for the best possible price. While naturally no one wants to underprice the property and potentially leave money on the table, the bigger risk from our experience is actually over pricing the home which can quickly cause buyers to disregard the home and allow it to stagnate.

Fortunately realtors have several tools, techniques and tactics that they can use to help determine the ideal listing price to not only get it sold in the quickest amount of time, but also for the best possible price. 

While some are factual and market driven, others involve analyzing the intangibles. So to put it another way, your realtor will determine the ideal listing price of your home using a combination of art as well as science.

So what are some of the methods realtors use to determine the best number to list your home at?

 First the science end of things.

Probably the first thing any realtor will do is a comparable market analysis. This is where they research what homes comparable to yours have sold for and then use that as a guideline. 

Next, they may focus a bit tighter and look at recent sales in your neighbourhood, or comparable neighbourhoods on homes with similar numbers of bedrooms, bathrooms, property size and so on. 

Now the art element comes into play.

Some homes have better curb appeal, better placed lots or other variables that can affect the suggested selling price either up or down.

So if you’re starting to get the impression that the realtor's experience counts and plays a key role in determining your home's value, you are absolutely correct. 

Having said all of that, there is one thing that is crucial to mention when it comes to what your home is worth, and that is that the market ultimately dictates what your home is worth. 

Yes an experienced and active realtor knows what buyers are rewarding and how to best price your home to draw in the maximum number of buyers but at the end of the day, nine times out of ten, the final selling price of your home was the price that it was genuinely worth.