Featuring real estate articles and information to help real estate buyers and sellers. The Nest features writings from Georges Benoliel and other real estate professionals. Georges is the Co-Founder of NestApple and has been working as an active real estate investor for over a decade.
When trying to sell a home in New York City, it’s normal to feel like your property will fly off the real estate market. That’s usually what happens. However, there are moments when you won’t have that kind of luck. For one reason or another, there’s a chance that you might end up having to drop the asking price of your home and get into home Price Reduction dilemna.
Of course, this is easier said than done. You don’t want to make others think you’re desperate for a sale.
But what can you do?
Let’s discuss the best Home Price Reduction strategies. We do sometimes recommend a price reduction after a home inspection.
At first glance, it’s easy to feel pressured to drop your home’s list price when you notice people aren’t buying. However, you might want to rethink this. Sometimes, it’s about how your listing agent markets your home for sale. Work with an agent instead of going in the for-sale-by-owner direction.
Reducing your home’s price shouldn’t be your go-to in most cases. Before you do it, try these strategies first:
There are several ways you can lower the price of your home, incentivize your buyers, and avoid looking desperate. The methods below tend to be the best options.
Are you and your neighbors getting out of the building you’re in? If so, then you might have to see your neighbors as competition. The easiest way to get buyers’ attention is to price yours slightly lower than your neighbors’.
So, if you have two families selling their apartments for $510,000, you should try selling yours for $509,500.
That slight difference will shoot your apartment to the top of the “lowest price” searches. In New York City, cheap real estate is always in demand.
We need to say something about generating buzz and urgency. Real estate agents sometimes trick into a property’s price at an ungodly level and then mark it down. Then, after a month, they will drop the price by tens of thousands or more.
This interests buyers and makes them wonder what caused the sudden drop.
This grabs attention and gets buyers thinking they have more negotiation power than they do. Sometimes, it may make them feel like they’re getting a bargain. Little do they know, the price was never supposed to be ultra-high in the first place.
The worst thing you can do for a property is to reduce its price by several thousand dollars before listing it. Pay attention to the housing market’s supply and demand.
If you’re not getting as many “bites” as you were hoping to at the start, this makes people think you’re desperate and tends to attract the worst investors; turn up the heat by gently dropping the price within the first couple of weeks.
If anyone asks, you can say there was a miscommunication between yourself and the real estate agent. It’s a way to play it cool, and this subtle change wards off people who think they can exploit you.
Have you ever noticed how often stores sell stuff for $9.99 instead of $10 flat? It’s a psychological trick that storekeepers use. $9.99 sounds cheaper than $10, even though it’s only a penny off.
This trick works with much larger amounts of money, too. If you want to lower the price but still give people the feeling that they’re getting a steal, drop it below a significant benchmark.
For example, instead of selling for $1,000,000, choose to sell your house for $990,000.
This puts it in the same price range but looks much cheaper.
If your home is still difficult to sell, you might want to check out what your brokerage, with a real estate license, can do to help. Your brokerage can arrange a buyer’s rebate.
If you want to sell your home fast, working things out with your real estate agent might be an excellent way. After all, everyone loves a rebate.
After an accepted offer, the buyer sometimes completes a home inspection. Asking for a price reduction after the home inspection is standard. We recommend negotiating that aspect, especially if you did not notice some defects initially.
Here’s the thing about New York City’s real estate: there’s never a low demand for real estate.
Even if you live in Manhattan’s smallest apartment, there will be a person who would adore owning what you have. There’s no such thing as a Manhattan apartment that stays on the market for too long. However, there are always exceptions to the rule.
The apartments that often end up sitting on the market for years are ultra-luxury apartments that cost upwards of $10 million. These apartments have fewer available buyers and usually require a lot of red tape for approval. In many cases, these “unwanted venues” also tend to have architecture or decoration quirks that most people don’t want.
Thankfully, the chances are high that you do not have those circumstances with your property. If you are selling a property and haven’t gotten a single offer in over six months, the best thing you can do is talk to your real estate broker. Sometimes, a little expertise is all you need. Take advantage of that brainstorming to discuss closing costs when you buy or sell and median home prices in the area.