I’m getting ready to list my home. It’s a small place, built in 1946, but I live in a very desirable mountain town and in a neighborhood considered the hottest market in the area. I had been basing my expectations for the list price on the current Zillow zestiment, but my realtor is recommending we list pretty significantly higher (50k more) than that. They are basing this off comparable properties in the area and it seems justified, but the price does have me a little worried — no way will someone buy this place for that much! Our realtor thinks it absolutely will.
I’ve done several meaningful improvements to the place: new windows throughout, AC (many homes in the area don’t even have cooling in the summer), new flooring, new sewer, a pergola patio in the front, and more. But the place is definitely not perfect!
Given everything with the housing market and not wanting to be in a situation where the house sits on the market for a long time, what should I do? Trust my realtor and list at what they’re recommending? Or suggest we start lower? How meaningful are zestiments? I don’t see many homes that go for significantly over and am wary of homes that are listed over.
Of course getting more money will put me and my family to get into the kind of home that will suit us.
Just looking for advice. Thank you!
Is my realtor’s suggested price too high?
byu/dolly_incogneato inRealEstate
Posted by dolly_incogneato
25 Comments
I am assuming you have a competent and experienced realtor. Trust them, they do this for a living. No sale, they dont get paid.
We can’t possibly tell you about your market. Your realtor should’ve been comparing to what has sold recently not to what is listed. At the same time I’m guessing the market was slower in the winter months -that may not be true. If this has been an active time than listing from the last 60 days that sold should be relevant. Also, you want to know days on market. This is something you should be discussing with your realtor if you are concerned. And the zestimate means nothing -that has nothing to do with comps.. (assuming you interviewed several realtors and got comps/suggested listing price from all)
The zillow estimates are worthless. Your realtor wants it sold fast too, I’d trust them
did you get 3 different agents opinion on price? That type of info might be helpful. Overpricing very rarely works out for the seller.
Zillow or any other “estimate” is complete bullshit. Listen to the realtor.
Trust your realtor. Ours knew the market and priced ours *lower* than the comps. This sparked a bidding war, and we ended up getting an offer $400k over list. Trust your realtor, presumably you hired them for their experience, and they know the market better than you.
Realtors never overprice a sale. I’d be worried you should be bumping it up by more.
Zestimates are great over a large number of houses where the +/- 20% averages out. For a specific house don’t put a lot of weight in it.
You seldom get more, can always accept lower later
Please for the love of all things do not rely on the Zestimate. It is always off. Your Agent is the expert. Please defer to them.
The agent has more experience and if you trust them to do the job, trust them to know the pricing.
Talk to them about expectations. Do they expect multiple offers when it lists? Are they hoping for just 1 offer in the first month? Generally if the market is hot, you want a lower price to attract more bidders. If it’s not that hot, you list for what it’s worth.
Either way, it’s a part of the process. Have an open house, ask for feed back. (basically if the price is too high or not.) Come back in 2 weeks and re asses. If no action, drop the price.
If your realtor is trying to get you to RAISE your price – if they are experienced or rated well at all, listen to them
Think about what little incentives they have to overprice your home. If they were lazy they would just price it at the low Zestimate like you want and sell the thing in 1 day. This gives me the feeling they are actually a good agent and you should listen to them. They are trying to get you the most money in your pocket (and still sell it quickly).
my advice is; listen to educated professionals, take their comments under consideration, make your own decision. they are VENDORS. they should follow YOUR direction
I my client said, “I trust you but I’m nervous about the list price.” I would take their lead and list it where they are comfortable.
It’s extremely hard to under price a home.
How could Reddit possibly know if your home is priced too high?
Disregard Zillow and this is the first time I’ve seen the argument in this direction holy cow.
Remember your interests are largely aligned with the broker’s interests. I can promise that they do not want to see your home sit. One, they want to get paid. Two, they don’t want to hear endless carping from you about why it’s not selling. Chances are, he could justify $75K more, but is being realistic.
You can also fire him and FSBO it for less than it’s worth.
First of all list price is for marketing. It’s not the sales price. Listing high is the number one mistake sellers make. List on the low end of comps and lots of people will come see it. You want the price to trend up, not down. Nothing says multiple escalating offers like a packed open house.
Have a sheet of all the upgrades and have them highlighted in the house with laminated cards or photos.
Nicely marketed and smartly priced homes escalate in price.
Online estimates mean very little. They’ve never been in your house.
How would we know?
Good idea to interview multiple realtors and have them give you an unbiased listing price range.
Just to add about listing too high to start…
Recently listed a property. We could have started at $1.5 and waited for that price but likely would have had to drop and give some concessions.
Instead, we priced at $1.375. Open house was PACKED! Had multiple buyers ask to do pre inspections.
Received 4 offers over ask…all waived contingencies and none asked for closing help. Sold for $1.485.
List it as recommended by the professional you hired.
You do know you can always lower the price if no one makes an offer, right?
Its a supply and demand thing. How much supply at your list price is there? How does your property compare to currently listed homes. Just take the realtors advice. You can drop it 50k if you have no interest / offers after 2 weeks. Just had a home in austin listed originally for over 4.5 million. They drifted the price down over many months. Then after new years dropped it 700K. 3 mill. Went pending right then. So…. dont sit around asking too much. But nothing wrong with floating a number for a SHORT period of time.
I would trust them , but if you don’t have an offer or at least well attended showings, be ready to meaningful drop the price after 4 weeks. The market is a bit soft in most places.
Zillow is Temu for Real Estate.
Don’t take *any* of it seriously.
Your real estate agent does this for a living, and *wants* your property to sell.
Zillow is a load of crap when it comes to their Zestimate.
If you think this one realtors market analysis is way off, you can get another realtor’s opinion. Don’t go signing a sales contract with any realtor until you’re comfortable with them and the listing price.
I’m not going to say Zestimates are worthless. But they are not developed specifically for your home. I live in a 4 bedroom neighborhood, that’s what buyers are expecting. Three bedroom homes go at a discount. Those are the sort of things a Zestimate will miss.
In my last home, they built a new subdivision with luxury homes one block behind me (cut down my damn forest too). Suddenly as people moved into the subdivision, my Zestimate doubled. It took about 6 months to correct itself.
Zestimates are not tailored to just your home and your realtor should be able to show you a market report with 3 or 4 homes that look almost like yours.