How to Get Top Dollar When Selling Your Home

I’m here today with top agent Chris Smith to get his take on how to get top dollar when selling your home.

Buy or Sell a Home with Charleston's #1 Team

According to Chris Smith, a top agent here at the Matt O’Neill team, it’s critical for sellers to interview agents to ensure that the one you hire has the necessary experience and marketing resources. Thankfully, the Matt O’Neill team has one of the best marketing systems in the entire country. 

Chris also recommends that you take measures to understand the importance of pricing your home correctly. Far too often as agents, we’ll work with sellers who list their house for a higher price than its market value, which ultimately costs them thousands of dollars.

You might think that pricing your home higher means you’ll get more for it, but that’s not always the case. Chris’ team actually recently worked with a seller who priced their home at $679,000, but all the data suggested it should have been a $629,000 listing. He was lucky to present the seller with an offer of $605,000 right out of the gate, but the seller considered it a lowball offer because they were priced $50,000 higher than market value.

A few years and a couple listing agents later, that seller circled back to the Matt O’Neill team for help in selling their home. Because their home sat stagnant on the market for so long and the market had shifted, we were able to produce another offer for them; however, the offer was only for $580,000, which lost them at least $25,000. Had the seller priced their home at market value, they could have negotiated that offer up.

"If, after eight or 10 showings, you haven’t yet received an offer for your property, it’s priced incorrectly."

An overpriced home will likely sit on the market for longer than usual. When that happens, potential buyers start to wonder if there’s something wrong with the property, perhaps causing them to gloss over it and move on to a different listing. In Chris’ example, the only thing that was wrong with the listing was that the seller had priced it incorrectly from the start.

On the flip side, Chris recently worked with a seller who trusted his guidance and expertise. In just two weeks, they had five offers and were able to get full asking price for the home—they closed with cash (non-contingent). 

Here’s a good gauge for whether or not your property is overpriced: If, after eight or 10 showings, you haven’t yet received an offer for your property, it’s priced incorrectly. At that point, you’ll need to make a correction or find yourself chasing the market. Why eight to 10 showings? Well, on average, buyers make a purchase after looking at 8 to 10 properties. If that many buyers all walked through your home and moved on to something else, that indicates there is something off about your listing.

If you’d like to speak more in-depth about this issue with Chris, he can be reached at (843) 619-0405 or at [email protected]. 

For any other questions you have about selling your home, feel free to reach out to the Matt O’Neill team.