In pricing her house, Dionysia thinks she’s being realistic. But is she?
She's been at it for ten months now, but Dionysia can't find a buyer for her renovated Victorian.
In fact, she's hasn't even gotten an offer on her house, located in the downtown of a "small MetroWest city," with just a modest pickup in traffic through the house this fall after a completely dead summer.
Dionysia wonders where she has gone wrong.
After all, she's priced her house at just $6,000 above what she paid for it eight years ago. And that's despite having pumped more than $100,000 into everything from a new roof.
Here's what she had to say in a comment on my recent blog on sellers who get insulted by low-ball bidders.
The house is an 1890s Victorian in the downtown area of a small MetroWest city. We've been here 8 years, put over $100K of work into the house, and are asking $6K more than what we paid for it. At this point (10 months on the market), my husband and I would be happy even with a low ball offer. That would at least show some serious interest. We had steady traffic over the winter and spring, then almost nothing the whole summer. It's picked up a bit again since Sept 1, but no offers.
OK, there are some big hints clues here, but I will let Dionysia finish her story. She appears inclined to blame potential buyers right now than look at whether she's priced her home correctly.
Some potential buyers seem to be unfamiliar with Victorian layouts, more around what they don't have that modern homes do (e.g., large closets, en-suite bathrooms) and the fact that Victorians were mostly built in downtown areas, since they were built by the movers and shakers of the day. Ours was built by a Boston Americans (later known as the Boston Red Sox) pitcher.
Work done on the house includes: new roof, new windows, updated electrical, updated/new plumbing, de-leading, exterior paint, new boiler, new water heater, chimney rebuilt and lined, brick foundation re-pointed, interior painted, updated/renovated bathrooms, landscaping.
Anyway, I think we're being realistic with our pricing and we're still not getting any offers.
Unfortunately, as much as Dionysia would like to think she's priced her house realistically, she hasn't.
In fact, she's set a price based mainly on the amount of money spent fixing up her house, compared to comparable sales - or, failing that, other sales in general in her neighborhood and community.
Dionsysia claims there aren't any comparable sales to look at, but no house is that unique. And in the end, if you don't offer a reasoned argument, based on some sort of analysis of what other homes in your neighborhood have sold for, you can be assured potential buyers will.
It's a chance to at least frame the argument - if you don't, the buyer will.
I thought Beermeister summed up the issues quite nicely.
No offers mean you are not realistic with your pricing. If you are serious about selling you need to lower your price to recent comparable sales. You will only get what the market will bear. If you bought 8 yrs ago, put in 100k+ and still can't sell for what you originally paid, it sounds like you are in a low income/low credit score area where it's tough to sell even at late 1990's prices. The sub-prime areas will never recover because sub-prime loans will never come back.
