You’re Sellers, NOT Dictators.
As an emotionally driven business, real estate can be tough for people to navigate. In fact it’s quite common for emotions to be the reason buyers/sellers fail.
Taking a counter offer price too seriously, not agreeing with contract conditions. These are all just part of the process and quite frankly, not emotional, just necessary.
Which brings us to the biggest mistake sellers are making right now. There’s actually some joy in this one a little bit. In a world of shutdowns, deadly viruses, worldwide quarantines and Monster Hornets, there is something assuring in the familiarity of a seller's worst enemy - PRICE!
A quick note on Market Value.
Market Value is market value. No matter how much you want, pray, sacrifice, scream, laugh, or cry, it will always be what it is. YOUR decision is whether that amount of money makes sense to your personal circumstances at that time.
If you followed our blog last week, you will have seen us explain the market is operating differently. Greater Vancouver is never an accurate representation of every pocket of the city, especially right now. Downtown is slower than East Vancouver. Detached Houses in North Burnaby are selling much faster than Crosstown condos are and so on.
Right now, as a seller, you HAVE to listen to your macro market. You can read the latest market updates and see numbers are up, benchmark pricing is doing this, benchmark pricing is doing that. But the truth is, if you've sat on market at $950,000 with no real offers in 2 months or more, you need to adjust pricing. In this case, the macro market is telling you nobody is willing to pay that amount right now for this type of property/situation.
“My neighbours sold their home, but they let it go for too cheap” - Excuse
“My home is different, I have hardwood floors, I’m worth the extra $30,0000” - Excuse
“We’re not in a rush to sell” - Excuse!!
A special note on the last one - You should change the wording to ‘We Don’t Want To Sell”. I don’t know where this fantasy came from, that sellers can demand over inflated prices and achieve them, providing they are not in a rush, as if all of a sudden in 6 months, magical buyers appear who are willing to pay over market prices.
If you’re over-priced, you don’t sell right now, end of conversation.
Sometimes this requires a hard look at your situation. You may have thought you were worth $1.1M. But you’ve been listed at that price, even reduced to $1.05M and are still not selling. Listen to what the market is telling you, the next step is a reduction to $1M, or leave it listed and don’t sell it.
Another fan favourite - “We’re going to list in a few months time when the market is where we want it to be.” Sorry, but you are just a mere mortal seller. You don’t have the power to dictate what the market will be. What on earth makes you think the market, which is remaining pretty buoyant right now, is going to all of a sudden jump 10-15% in 3 to 4 months time.
Even prior to Covid, benchmark pricing was increasing ON AVERAGE 0.7% a month, this means you’d have to have nothing but a rising market constantly, for 2 years plus to reach your desired “15% more in price” … “We’re going to list in a few months when the market is where we want it to be” … Get outta here!
Another important note, it’s of our opinion the market numbers are slightly skewed based upon pent up activity. We still believe heavily the market is recovering nicely and things are trending up, but these numbers are elevated based upon all the usual Summertime buyers/sellers, AS WELL as the Springtime ones who were just delaying their moves until post Covid-19. Hence we will see these numbers steady, in our opinion.
There is room for success in this market, but unless your property is in a hot commodity zone, you are going to HAVE to be flexible when it comes to pricing and terms. We don’t care what the overall market is saying, if your macro market is painting a different picture, that’s what you have to work with. Those in the quieter areas of the market should be prepared as if they are going into a heavy buyers market. Anything less can spell failure for you. You are certainly not in a position to start demanding this and that and expecting to achieve success.
We’re all for the market getting hotter, but we also need to pump the brakes on people getting ahead of themselves and making it that much harder to WIN.
Until next week!
As an emotionally driven business, real estate can be tough for people to navigate. In fact it’s quite common for emotions to be the reason buyers/sellers fail.
Taking a counter offer price too seriously, not agreeing with contract conditions. These are all just part of the process and quite frankly, not emotional, just necessary.
Which brings us to the biggest mistake sellers are making right now. There’s actually some joy in this one a little bit. In a world of shutdowns, deadly viruses, worldwide quarantines and Monster Hornets, there is something assuring in the familiarity of a seller's worst enemy - PRICE!
A quick note on Market Value.
Market Value is market value. No matter how much you want, pray, sacrifice, scream, laugh, or cry, it will always be what it is. YOUR decision is whether that amount of money makes sense to your personal circumstances at that time.
If you followed our blog last week, you will have seen us explain the market is operating differently. Greater Vancouver is never an accurate representation of every pocket of the city, especially right now. Downtown is slower than East Vancouver. Detached Houses in North Burnaby are selling much faster than Crosstown condos are and so on.
Right now, as a seller, you HAVE to listen to your macro market. You can read the latest market updates and see numbers are up, benchmark pricing is doing this, benchmark pricing is doing that. But the truth is, if you've sat on market at $950,000 with no real offers in 2 months or more, you need to adjust pricing. In this case, the macro market is telling you nobody is willing to pay that amount right now for this type of property/situation.
“My neighbours sold their home, but they let it go for too cheap” - Excuse
“My home is different, I have hardwood floors, I’m worth the extra $30,0000” - Excuse
“We’re not in a rush to sell” - Excuse!!
A special note on the last one - You should change the wording to ‘We Don’t Want To Sell”. I don’t know where this fantasy came from, that sellers can demand over inflated prices and achieve them, providing they are not in a rush, as if all of a sudden in 6 months, magical buyers appear who are willing to pay over market prices.
If you’re over-priced, you don’t sell right now, end of conversation.
Sometimes this requires a hard look at your situation. You may have thought you were worth $1.1M. But you’ve been listed at that price, even reduced to $1.05M and are still not selling. Listen to what the market is telling you, the next step is a reduction to $1M, or leave it listed and don’t sell it.
Another fan favourite - “We’re going to list in a few months time when the market is where we want it to be.” Sorry, but you are just a mere mortal seller. You don’t have the power to dictate what the market will be. What on earth makes you think the market, which is remaining pretty buoyant right now, is going to all of a sudden jump 10-15% in 3 to 4 months time.
Even prior to Covid, benchmark pricing was increasing ON AVERAGE 0.7% a month, this means you’d have to have nothing but a rising market constantly, for 2 years plus to reach your desired “15% more in price” … “We’re going to list in a few months when the market is where we want it to be” … Get outta here!
Another important note, it’s of our opinion the market numbers are slightly skewed based upon pent up activity. We still believe heavily the market is recovering nicely and things are trending up, but these numbers are elevated based upon all the usual Summertime buyers/sellers, AS WELL as the Springtime ones who were just delaying their moves until post Covid-19. Hence we will see these numbers steady, in our opinion.
There is room for success in this market, but unless your property is in a hot commodity zone, you are going to HAVE to be flexible when it comes to pricing and terms. We don’t care what the overall market is saying, if your macro market is painting a different picture, that’s what you have to work with. Those in the quieter areas of the market should be prepared as if they are going into a heavy buyers market. Anything less can spell failure for you. You are certainly not in a position to start demanding this and that and expecting to achieve success.
We’re all for the market getting hotter, but we also need to pump the brakes on people getting ahead of themselves and making it that much harder to WIN.
Until next week!
Jay Mcinnes
T: 604.771.4606
jay@mcinnesmarketing.com
Ben Robinson
T: 604.353.8523
ben@mcinnesmarketing.com