The Dangers of Over-Pricing your Tulsa home for sale

Over-pricing your Tulsa home for sale can be the biggest mistake a home Seller can make. Carefully review the data of comparable homes sold in your neighborhood, and start out the gate with a home priced in line with its condition.

The importance of pricing correctly from day one is that you just don’t get a 2nd chance to make a good impression. After 100+ days on market and multiple price reductions, you look like the sad girl at the mixer who didn’t get asked to dance. Internet savvy home Buyers ALWAYS ask their Realtor how long a home has been on the market. The longer your Tulsa home for sale has been on the market – the lower the perceived value. If your home has been on the market for over 60 days in the Tulsa market, prospective Buyers will wonder why no one else wanted to purchase your home.
Over-pricing your home is setting yourself up for failure. You are likely to get your best offer within thirty days of listing, so price your property competitively in order to achieve that. And if you do get an offer within the first week on market, don’t assume you under-priced your home. In the Tulsa market, homes priced correctly can and will be snatched up quickly.
Over-pricing your home will help sell your neighbor’s home. If everything else if relatively comparable, but your home is $20,000 more, your neighbor’s home will look like a great deal. It’s difficult for Tulsa home sellers not to be emotional about their home’s value, but try to focus on business decisions and follow the advice of your Realtor®.

Prominent Realtors® nationwide participated in a panel discussion about the dangers of over-pricing your home. Panelists include Bryan Robertson of Saratoga, California; Jeff Dowler of Carlsbad and north coastal San Diego; Rich Cederberg of Albuquerque New Mexico; and myself, Lori Cain of Tulsa Oklahoma. Interesting that we all agreed on pricing strategies, despite representing different markets across the country!

Topics discussed included: (1) using comparable data to establish price, (2) acceptable margins of pricing above estimated market value, and (3) how and when to react if you discover that your home is overpriced. Please enjoy the 8-minute video below.

I understand your pain, because I sold my dream home a few years ago. It was my first home – the one in which I invested every spare dime – and the one in which I personally planted thousands of dollars of landscaping. The “home Seller” in me and the “Realtor” in me had several discussions about how to price my home.

No, I would not recover the money invested in landscaping or the many hours of sweat equity. No, I would not recover the cost of updating light fixtures and door knobs from outdated brass to what is currently in style. Nobody cares that I froze the first winter in my historic home and had to sell a sports car to afford new, energy-efficient vinyl windows.

It all comes down to what homes are currently selling for in your neighborhood. Period. Unless you have a unique floor plan or fabulous view that is going to knock a home Buyer’s socks off, you need to stick to the data of comparable home sales when determining where to price your midtown Tulsa home for sale.

If twenty of your neighbors sold their home for $100 per square foot, it’s not likely that you’re going to sell yours for $110 per square foot. Look at the comparable sales in your neighborhood and price your home competitively from day one!