How to Sell Your House for More Than It's Worth

If you have a house that you need to sell, I’m going to bet that you’ll be wanting to get the most amount of money you can get for it – can I hear a boo-yeah, Amen to that brother? Wanting to sell your house for top-dollar is a given, right? That is, after all, why you hire a professional Realtor as opposed to just putting a sign in the front lawn and trying to sell it yourself – yes?

But the question is: How to Sell Your House for More Than It’s Worth?

When you go to sell your house, you’re aiming to sell it for top dollar. But what just does “top dollar” mean? To me, “top dollar” means selling your house for 100% of fair market value – getting every dollar for your that your property is worth.

Now it’s time to ask – do you think it’s possible to sell your house for much more than fair market value? Is it possible you could get a buyer to pay you substantially more for your property than what it’s really worth?

Most sellers will agree that it’s not likely they will be able to find a buyer who will wildly over-pay for their home. But does that mean they won’t try? Sadly enough, many sellers do in fact try to start much higher than the indicated market value for a property – and then, through a series of price cuts, eventually end up selling for a lot less than they initially asked – and, usually, less than they would have received had they priced the property correctly from the get-go.

Why is that, you ask? The reason is simple: new listings get the most attention in the market. When a property first hits the market, there will be a lot of eyeballs on it. If the property is overpriced, buyers won’t make appointments to see it, they’ll skip the open houses, they won’t write offers. Serious buyers – the ones who are pre-approved, have been looking for months, know the market cold – will see an over-priced listing come on, recognize it as such, and promptly forget about it. Coming onto the market too far over fair market value is a sure-fire way to blow your very best chance to sell for top dollar as the very best buyers for your property will be ignoring it.

The fewer buyers who are looking at your property means there will be fewer offers, at lower prices, from less qualified buyers. Fewer buyers and fewer offers almost always means less money for the seller.

So why would a seller want to price their property such as to virtually guarantee the best buyers will ignore it, and instead keep the property on the market for months with successive price cuts, to eventually end up working with one weak, low-ball buyer who chisels them down still further on price?

It beats the hell out of me. But I see it happen all the time.

You want to get top dollar for your property? Unless it’s truly a unique, one-of-a-kind property for which there are very few buyers anyway, the formula is quite simple: price your home below market value, and give your home adequate market exposure before accepting an offer. This way, instead of working with just one buyer, you the seller will have the luxury of working with several buyers who are ready, willing, and able to compete against each other to buy your property – even if it means they might have to pay a bit over what they’d consider fair market value.

This is the only way anyone can reasonably expect to sell their house for more than it’s worth.

There now – I’ve spilled the beans, you know the secret! If you want to know how much your home is worth (provided it’s in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, or Monterey counties!), head on over to our home value lookup tool to request a free, no-obligation PinPoint Price Analysis of your home.

If you – or anyone you know – are thinking about selling your house, you’ll also want to grab a copy of my Insider’s Guide to Selling Your Home – recently updated for 2012! You can request a copy over on this page of my site.