Naturally Occurring Shapes ” and Numbers Supposedly, there’s no such thing as a naturally-occurring perfect square or rectangle (vs., say, a sphere). Similarly, I’d venture that there’s no such thing as a house that’s worth exactly $500,000 or $1 million (on the coasts, add a zero). The Lure of Round Numbers So, why does it...Read More
Naturally Occurring Shapes — and Numbers Supposedly, there’s no such thing as a naturally-occurring perfect square or rectangle (vs., say, a sphere). Similarly, I’d venture that there’s no such thing as a house that’s worth exactly $500,000 or $1 million. The Lure of Round Numbers So, why does it seem that an inordinate number of...Read More
Would-Be Home Sellers Beware “If your parents don’t have children, you won’t either.” –old joke. “If your home doesn’t get showings, it won’t get offers, either.” –real estate equivalent Not a few would-be Sellers, arguing for a too-high listing price, rationalize that “Buyers always come in low, so why not leave a little (or a...Read More
How to Show Up in Twice as Many Home Buyer Searches Psychologically, $299,900 somehow just seems cheaper to Buyers than $300,000 (just like $2.99 a gallon appears to be less than $3). But, it’s a mistake to price residential real estate that way — at least around century and half-century marks ($100k and $50k). That’s...Read More
“Covering the [Real Estate] Spread” (i.e., Commission) Call it real estate brokerage’s dirty little secret: a good Realtor can add more value in some deals than others. While a Realtor’s “value-added” should always exceed their commission — if it were otherwise, there wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) be Realtors — some types of transactions simply offer more opportunity to...Read More
Padded List Prices What do you do if you’re a Seller in a Buyer’s market who’s worried about lowball offers? At least a few succumb to the temptation to pad their asking (“list”) price. Their logic? The higher their initial price, “the more room they have to negotiate.” Flawed Logic Well, yes. But that presumes...Read More
