In” the current real estate market,” proper pricing is” the most effective marketing strategy. Here is an example of how effective pricing” minimizes” days on the market (the Multiple Listing Service defines “Days on Market” as the time it takes for a home to be free of buyer contingencies and ready to close escrow). As of May 15, Marin County had 899 active single family homes for sale. During the month of April there were 147 single family home sales. If you take a “snapshot” of that” data you’ll see there is about 6.1 months of inventory available.” (To determine the amount of inventory” take the current inventory and divide that number by the previous month’s sales volume – Total Available Homes/Previous Month’s Number of Sales —899/147 = 6.1.)” 

The reason for sluggish sales and rising home inventory is that many homes available are priced too high for today’s market.”  David Lionhardt wrote a great article in the New York Times about home pricing. Check it out.” In this market you need to attract buyers “right out of the gate”.”  Homes on the market for longer than 30 days are considered “stale” and are passed over for the new inventory coming on the market daily. Once determined stale by the market the only way you can attempt to re-interest buyers in your property is to reduce the price. Unfortunately that sets you up for selling” your property for less than you would have had it come on the market priced correctly.

Here’s an example of days on the market and how it affects sales price.

Since January 1, 2008 in Marin homes that were on the market for:

1 – 30 days saw 100.41% of listing price
31 – 120 days saw 95.14% of listing price
121 and over days saw 91.81% of listing price

Generally, the longer a home stays on the market the less it sells for.

If you’re going to sell your home in today’s real estate market, do yourself a favor” - let the facts and figures guide you, not what your best friend says” your house is” worth or what your neighbor sold their home for last year, etc. If you price intelligently you will find that this isn’t such a bad market after all. Unfortunately most of the pain is self-inflicted and avoidable in many cases.

Did you know” that” as of May 12, 2008 your cell phone can be contacted by telemarketers and other sales calls. Register “ here to avoid sales calls to your cell phone.

Tired of all those unwanted catalogs jamming your mailbox? Check out catalog choice #1“  OR catalog choice #2.