When you are planning to sell a home, flat fee brokers as well as real estate agents will tell you that home pricing is one of the most important things to consider.
Simply stated, a home that is put on the market that has the right price is more likely to sell than homes with either super-low prices or inflated prices. If a home price is too low, prospective buyers will assume that there is something wrong with the property. If the price is too high for the property, you can expect your home to sit on the market for years while similar properties move.
What about home pricing that starts high and comes down? Sure, you can lower your price, but do it too often and prospective buyers might see desperation.
So what can you do? The most important thing is to price your home correctly the first time. Have an online appraisal done. Hire a professional appraiser. Have a Comparative Market Analysis conducted. And then assign a realistic value to the property that you are selling.
Want to learn more about the importance of home pricing? Visit IHS Realty for details.
Flat Fee Realty
Learn how to price your home to sell.
Internet Home Services Real Estate Blog
February 9, 2006 – 12:19 pm
Another housing valuation site?
With all the hoopla surrounding the launch of Zillow.com, Richard Bartons the founder of Expedia.com’s newest venture, I was expecting something that might revolutionize the real estate industry in the way Expedia helped to transform the travel industry. Instead we get a website providing online home valuations??!! The website launch’s anticipation build-up by the media created a traffic frenzy that apparently took Zillow offline for most of the day yesterday.
I’m sorry, but online Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) just isn’t very exciting. The website looks nice and there’s an easy to use interface, but there are plenty of players already in the market offering similar services, albeit, not for free. For instance, HouseValues.com services come with the baggage that your contact information is fed to hungry real estate agents in your area. They make money off of referrrals, so I guess Zillow represents a step up for consumers in that regard. ElectronicAppraiser.com offers housing sale statistics for consumers for a modest price.
From interviews with Barton, it seems that the goal is web traffic and then turning that traffic into revenue in some form or fashion. The idea of capturing enough online viewers to make SOMETHING happen worked fairly well for Expedia. So what’s the end game here. It’s not apparent how the revenue will be generated except perhaps from advertising.
One is left to believe that there has to be another or two offering still to come from this website. Perhaps the free house valuation is a lead-in to other ventures. Otherwise, I’m not sure what all the excitement was about.
See Also
- Zillow
Founder of Expedia launches home valuation website
