As you are no doubt aware the Boston real estate market is white hot. Homebuyers are very active in the marketplace, and home sellers are scarce. The inequality of demand to supply has lead to historic low housing inventory levels and has kept most of greater Boston real estate in the grips of a seller's market for years.
In today's sales environment a few of my potential home seller clients have come to me with notions of overpricing their properties for maximum return and to take full advantage the market.
So, Can You Overprice Your Property In A Hot Market?
Yes, you can! It is possible to overprice a property in a hot market, but you are in my opinion essentially "cutting your nose off to spite your face."
What I'm encouraging my seller clients to do is NOT overprice their units, but rather properly position them in the market among their home's competition and similar recently sold properties. In turn, the greatest number of interested buyers will compete among themselves, each trying to out bid the others; garnering the seller his/her highest and best possible sales price, or maximum return.
The greater Boston real estate market is more than a little crazy with "buyer fever" already. Doing anything to diminish buyer interest in your home for sale, like wildly overpricing it, is counterproductive. Let irrational desire motivated by scarcity set the market by encouraging maximum competition among interested homebuyers.
The following graphics are real estate classics that demonstrate the value of positioning your home for sale "in the market" and not just "on the market." Pay particular attention to how being just 10% over a competitive market position affects buyer activity in the second graphic.
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