What's the best way to price a house?

[Whenisitmysleepytime]

I'm going to fiddle with our houses' asking price.

What do you think sells/ attracs you to a property best?

Offers in excess of - so you know what the bottom line is?
Offers in the region of - so you know where to aim?
A straight figure ending in 0s so it looks like a sensible number?
£something ending in 950 - so you think you're getting a bargain?

We started with OIEO but I'm probably going to change it to £xxx, 950.

Was curious to what you thought was best. :)

If we priced it at £xxx950 it would e the cheapest 3bed in a half mile radius at least. Most are either at our original asking price or higher.
However we NEED a quick sale as we are relocating and need to be settled before the deadline for primary school places is up!

My sister is a Hot-Shot Real Estate Saleswoman.I asked her the Same question
2 months ago.She told us to Landscape-and if we were using a hedge (shrubs)-
NOT to place them close to Windows.She said it lowers the Value.We built
another porch on the west side,painted it the Same color as the new "Trim"
painting.We added 3 new Steel doors,and we "water-blasted" the bricks to get
Them Clean.Now we are painting the Inside and cleaning all carpets.All Appliances are New, so no worries there,and the roof is new.We researched the
Value of All Homes around ours...Knew that we had the best floor-plan and
Porches; so we "went Over"the highest priced home in our area(the ones Com-
Parable to ours...and That is our Price. Jill.

The last time we moved we NEEDED to move and the EA suggested OIEO - every offer we had was below. In hindsight she knew we needed to sell (relocation for job) and 'managed' us so that we got a quick easy sale, but for about 10k less than we wanted. If you need a quick sell just make sure your price is lowest (and not just by £50, but more like 5k or so depending on your price bracket) and include in the description that it is priced to sell. People will feel they are getting a bargain and you can get out quickly. Then, obviously, make sure the house is immaculate, decluttered and depersonalised. Good luck!

Japple - I'm guessing your house is possibly slightly different to a FTB 3 bed terrace! :)

All the EA we saw said don't spend any money - just make sure all DIY is completed and garden/ house is clean and tidy.

If you're trying to sell quickly, I imagine OIEO and a low price relative to other houses in the area will get it shifted quick. You'd hope this would attract interest and spark a bidding war. Just make sure the bottom price is one you'd actually be happy to accept in case no bidding war materialises!

There is an online agent who make this approach their policy for all properties and promise to sell your house quickly because of it. They had a house on near us for offers over £145,000 a couple of weeks ago (usual asking price for an equivalent probably at least £169,950 or so I think). It was sold in less than a week.

House is already decluttered except the loft and depersonalised and is always v tidy and clean for viewings. :)
We will be about £5k lower than most in the area if i fiddle the asking price.

I just want it to sell ASAP as I hate being at the mercy of other people when I just want our life sorted!

Aufaniae - who is this online agent? Am thinking of going multi agency once current contract ends.

Unfortunately I have no idea what they actually sold for!

If you have a round figure it turns up on the first page of a RightMove search to that figure. Sounds daft, but maximising your search "presence" can make a big difference.

We did offers over eventually, and accepted an offer £4k over. The OO price was the amount on our mortgage plus our expected costs (agents, conveyancing, etc).0

Good luck!

I can look them up when I get back for you if you like (on my phone on a train atm, not the easiest!)

However I'm not sure if using them us the best idea (just nick their strategy!) purely because when you go to their website as a buyer, you can easily see the info aimed at sellers which talks about how they want to emcourage bidding wars! I wonder if that might put buyers off? Although maybe it doesn't matter if people feel they're getting a bargain anyway. I did notice they can take calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for appointments. Which I thought was good.

We sold our flat through an online agent. Housenetwork.co.uk

It cost £600 (inc. VAT) instead of over £6k fees!

They list your home on all the websites, take pictures and do a floor plan. They field calls from the buyers, and make appointments with you for them as you do the viewings.

If you are happy with your pics you may not even needthis level of service (there will be others which are cheaper I imagine)

It worked for us anyway, and saved us a load of cash.

OIEO is just really, reallly, really annoying when I search Rightmove up to my maximum limit and then find the results include houses saying OIEO!!!!

It's so ANNOYING.

What's your OIEO figure? Is that truly your bottom line - absolute rock, no movement bottom?

Well, add 10% to it and just market at that price with no OIEO, no OIRO, no huge price bands like from 210 - 270 - no bollocks basically.

Most of the OIEO I have seen are where people have a house on at a ridiculous asking price for ages then lower the price to about 10k less and change it to OIEO so it looks like a reduction but isn't really much of one. Hence I associate it with intransigent sellers and people trying to make the property look cheaper than it really is.

I think 'no bollocks' is a good maxim

I called EA and they agreed with you horatia.

Our OIEO is £150,000. We were going to change it to £149950.
£150k was why we thought we needed to make the mortgage work on the new place. But actually we have some wriggle room there - although I'm not sure how much.

Maybe just putting it at £150k would be better?

Huh? Does that make sense?

I thought Horatia was saying that Rightmove bands prices in units of 10,000 so if your price is in a round figure i.e. £150,000 you appear in the first results (with everyone else at that price) but if you use a non-round price, like £149,950 you appear in the later pages of the search.

So if you agree with Horatia you should use £150,000 NOT £149,950 as you may be intending.

In any case, if you price at £150k you will get offers probably starting around the £130k region.

It sounds like you are prepared to accept offers of below £150K so I wouldn't use the annoying OIEO - because you don't mean it and you very likely will miss out on potential buyers.

Why not put it on the market at either £150 or £160 and just see what you get?

I assume you've had no offers yet.

No we've had no offers.

I think the £149950 is now out as an idea and probably will go with £150k. Although I'm waiting on the EA's opinions when they call me back.

The OIEO was the EA idea so we went with that. The house has only been on market for 5 weeks but we need a quick sale. We cant accept as low as £130 as we paid £135.

So, can you sell at £135k and above? Or do you have a definite figure you NEED?

I think you said similar houses are priced at £5k more than yours - so £155,000.

At that price I would expect them to be willing to accept something between £140 and £150 BUT definitely UNDER £150k.

So, by you saying OFFERS in EXCESS OF £150,000, you're basically pricing your house above the other houses so that whole strategy is backfiring on you.

Start at what you are willing and/or need to accept. Add a bit for negotiation.

If you want a Quick sale don't set artificial price barriers which you're not really intending to stick to - because you'll lose out.

I would guess you've had no offers because you said NO offers UNDER £150k which if other houses are on the market at £155K - is just not a realistic position to take.

Don't believe your EA, they're just telling you what they think you want to hear.

Dear "SleepyTime"... This one house of ours is Just a 3-Bed,2-bath...has 1
Giant Master bed,1 Giant living room,1- car garage...and all the other rooms
are Small.Has a huge,fenced backyard,a Very large front yard...and the driveway can hold 6 cars easy.All we've got Going for us is the Best Floorplan
On 3 blocks.A large shopping center is 1 block behind us...so we figure we can
Ask for a little more money than the Rest.Jill.

If i were you i'd seriously consider going with an online agent. It'll save you about £3k! (what percentage are they asking?) leaving you more room to negotiate with buyers.

I personally, as a buyer, don't like seeing OIEO but that is usually because I'm search to a specific limit, and that implies a bit more than that limit, potentially.

However, I think if you are pricing your house lower than similar properties, then it might work in your favour.

How many viewings have you had? Have you searched the 'sold' prices in your area? What others are on the market for, and what they are actually selling for, are ofc two different things. If you really need a quick sale, it'd be good to know what you can realistically expect.

You're saying you need a quick sale but then you're also saying you want more than you paid for it (if I've understood correctly). Consider though that these may be mutually exclusive statements. If you need to sell, you have to let the market decide what its worth - that could be £100K or it could be £150K. If you need £135K, you may have to wait - could be one month, one year or ten years. What I'm saying is you should decide what your priority is as you may not be able to have both.

Stick it on at £150k, (NO oiro, oieo or any other shystery EA nonsense)
be willing to take offers, don't say no to anything, give it a month/or two and accept the best offer you get.