Competing with Foreclosures

You may be able to name one, two, three or more homes in your neighborhood that are under foreclosure. This means some amount of trouble if you are looking to sell your home, but there are ways you can navigate the current market successfully.

In just about every market in the country, foreclosures are on the rise, causing people who want to sell their homes a good deal of panic. “We’re in a very price-sensitive market and obviously in any buyers’ market that’s the case,” explains Chris Heller, president of The Heller Real Estate Group, Inc., at Keller Williams. “So the sellers who are not in foreclosure or who are not in distress have to compete with those properties with the same pool of buyers. So there are two things that they can do; the two things are: pricing the property so it is competitively priced and they have to make sure that the property shows in absolute perfect condition,” Heller advises.

A recent Realty Times article offers some advice to sellers for coping in this difficult market. First, be clear about your market-length time, which is the time that you are able to have your home on the market. This will help you price your home accurately. Buyers will not pay more simply because you owe more on your mortgage; you have to price the home according to its worth, not according to what you owe.

Pricing your home correctly from the time you put it on the market is especially important. Often, sellers are forced to keep lowering their prices. Don’t just look at a computer listing of prices in your area; actually do some footwork and find out what you’re competing against. Look at homes for sale and evaluate how they compare to yours, inside and out, since this is what buyers will do. Overpricing your home will cause it to sit on the market longer, which means that the listing becomes “stale.” You may get buyers low-balling you just to see how low you’ll go. If your home is slightly underpriced from the beginning, you can generate more attention upfront and lessen your chances of having your listing languish on the market or having to lower your price even further.

You should also partner with an agent. In this difficult market, an experienced agent can be invaluable. He or she can help provide advice that will help you get your home sold and can help market the home aggressively so your home stands out from the foreclosures. Choosing the best methods to promote your home are essential. “Nowadays, advertising isn’t really important because every buyer has access to complete information via the Internet – everyone can find the properties,” explains Heller. That doesn’t mean, however, that you and your agent shouldn’t work on having your home loaded on Web sites and providing virtual tours and attractive photos. Your agent will be able to assist you with unique marketing approaches that capture buyers’ attention.

Finally, your home needs to be the best value among the homes for sale in your neighborhood. “Buyers are going to look at all their options,” says Heller. “We have to make it painfully obvious we’re the best value. It doesn’t always mean the lowest price. It may mean having more goodies for the same price. It may mean having a lower price, but the buyers have the information and prices of what’s available and they will choose the one that is the best value – and we’re either going to help sell the other homes or the other homes are going to help sell ours.”

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