Preparing for the sale of your Santa Fe home is sometimes a long process. There’s finding a reputable Realtor (although I can solve that issue for you right now!), boxing up the family photos, small (and large) repairs, painting, sanding, scraping, organizing. Sometimes it feels incredibly daunting. But the absolute most important point in your sales strategy is this:  Price It Right.

Newly refinished wood floors in the Casa Alegre home I recently sold.

How do you know where to price it? Your Realtor should show up on your first visit with a comparative market analysis showing what other homes in your immediate neighborhood have sold for in the past 12 months. The Santa Fe market has improved on the past year, so hopefully her analysis will show that you can get every bit of the value you perceive from your investment.

Realtors don’t make the market. We just interpret and then work within it to give you the best service available.

Old news, right? Let me give you a few examples. This past summer, I had a client with a home in Casa Alegre, a 1950’s neighborhood full of Stamm homes that’s very popular right now. She did everything right – refinished her floors, new stucco, new paint, new countertops and a new kitchen sink. Not horribly expensive repairs, but essential to putting her home’s best foot forward. And then we priced the house exactly right.

We had three offers in the first weekend.

I have another client who argued with me over price, saying she needed to get exactly what she paid for the house during the height of the market. We had the classic discussions, however, we listed at a price that I believed was $30K too high.

I have aggressively marketed this home in every way I know possible. Result: It’s still on the market after four months. Luckily I wrote in an agreement that after 120 days we would significantly reduce the price to my first recommendation. Yesterday, following that reduction, we had two buyers who appear to be in the process of writing competing offers.

Price rules. Obviously condition and location immediately follow, but price rules. We want you to get the absolute best return on your investment, but we want to be realistic. And our job is to get your house sold. Every Realtor would love to price high and get properties sold. We only make money when you make money. But pricing yourself out of the market doesn’t get your house sold.

The first 30 days of a listing are the most critical. If your price appears to be too high, buyers will stay away because they think you’re not serious about selling or unwilling to negotiate.

If you’re considering selling, let’s talk. I’ll help you arrive at a reasonable price that gets you out of your home in the quickest possibly time with the last amount of hassle.

Because Price Rules.