Above is my home’s price history. It was 2019, I was living in a home that I absolutely loved. I bought it with my husband from a family with the same last name as us, so it felt like destiny. This was the very first home I ever bought and truly, I probably would have stayed forever. It was in a great neighborhood, close to the water central location, gorgeous trees and tons of room. Plus it had a huge gunite pool the previous owners put in themselves, and terrazzo floors. I remember when I found the home, we were renting a stunning house next to the bay but my husband wanted a neighborhood for our kids to play in. I reluctantly agreed to leave the rental and the view and when I saw this home online I knew it was worth moving for. The pictures were not good and it had been sitting on the market for a couple of months empty. The listing agent was the son of the owners and was selling his childhood home. He was also a builder and had access to the mls and a realtor licence but wasn’t truly a “realtor”. When I came to look at the house I knew that house was mine. It wasn’t being presented well and I knew it was a deal.
We submitted an offer that day. Being the first house I ever bought and the fact that I had no real estate agent telling me I was bonkers, I asked the owner if he could knock a wall down to open the kitchen up. That still makes me laugh. The whole process was super easy. No agent was involved. We were all friendly and John, my husband, took care of the details. I honestly can hardly remember any of those because it was so easy. When we moved in we found a bottle of champagne and old fashioned classic coke bottles in the fridge for the kids and a welcome note. We love the Rogers to this day, and when we moved out we invited them back in to see all that I had done to prepare for the sale. I finally opened that wall up, removed the linoleum floor in the kitchen and painted the kitchen cabinets a soft blue by myself. I put in new light fixtures and just made it look pretty.
When I listed the house, it wasn’t because I necessarily wanted to. After a vacation to Colorado my husband told me he applied and got a job out there. SURPRISE!!! This was always his dream and I knew I had to leave this house, and I had a very short amount of time to do it. John left right before summer and I was left to prepare for the sale.
Like most sellers, I knew the market in my neighborhood really well. I was going to be moving to Colorado from Pensacola and also knew that I needed as much money as possible because of the huge difference in price. Over the years John and I would talk about what we thought we could sell the house for. He always said 300k in the beginning, because he started to hate the yard work- major and small details, and the closed in kitchen. I knew it was worth more and would say 360k. He thought I was nuts. That would be $100K MORE then what we bought it for only a few years before.
We needed a realtor who was local and smart, to list our home, and my friend Grace suggested her friend Tammy who just started her own brokerage, Poppy Properties. When we were discussing list price she suggested 360k. I had actually gone online and researched different pricing models. I believe If data and statistics tell me something to do, I listen. I spend time on zillow and recognized the patterns- overpriced you sit, you condition your buyers to wait, because the price goes down if they do. Since I needed to sell fast, I couldn’t mess around with that drama. Slowly showing the house to buyers and hoping they agreed that it was worth what I thought was not an option. I wanted to be in control. I wanted them to fight over it. I wanted to back up offers if any of the deals feel through. So I decided to list the house significantly less than what it’s true value was- on purpose. I told Tammy and her eyes widened. I asked her to trust me, she agreed it would definitely create competition. She actually put it in the mls a little higher than I suggested because she was a little scared. Sellers never do this! The day it hit the market we had showings all day and received 8 offers. This was not a hot market by any means. It wasn’t terrible but bidding wars were not a thing yet. One offer came in below list, and we laughed at their stupidity, but all the rest were significantly above. That day I was basically in the car waiting to be allowed back in my house, with my dogs, kids and my mother in law. Car after car kept showing up. It felt like an open house and the energy was electric. Multiple showings happened at once. I got over what I wanted by 5k lol, but over what I asked for by 26k, plus they allowed me to stay in the home rent free for the entire summer while I packed. This family still lives there and love it as much as we did.
The lesson of this long story? You can not under sell a home. Houses that sit on the market too long sit because they are presented poorly like my house originally with the bad pics or because they are priced too high, or the location is not good. That is truly it. It is NEVER about exposure. Just look at Zillow if you need proof, each listings is exposed to every single serious buyer who is looking. A listing is only a solicitation for an offer. More importantly a listings only REAL job is to create URGENCY. It’s not a contract- and if you don’t like the offers you are receiving, if you price it low and no one bite, no one is going to “make” you sell. But honestly, if no one bites at the below market price- maybe it really is not below value? If you price your home below value you create urgency where there is none. In buyers markets, sellers markets, balanced markets, the only way to create that urgency is presentation and price. People need to feel like it’s a deal in any market. Food for thought. Here’s a link to the article I read years ago that convinced me: https://www.hgtv.com/lifestyle/real-estate/price-low-to-sell-high