When real estate agents help you find a price for your home they use the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Agents do a Comparative Market Analysis or simply CMA. Basically they see what similar homes have sold for recently in the area. These sold homes are referred to as comparables. I’m going to show you how to price your FSBO using Zillow doing the same thing.

Watch the video to see how I price a home on my listings. This is one more thing you will soon realize you can easily do yourself when it comes to selling your home.

Why Price On Your FSBO Matters

Not all homes are created equal. That’s why I like the price per square foot method.

You may have two homes side by side that are the same model and size. One has been updated with expensive top of the line components while the other needs help so of course the updated home is going to be worth more.

In any given suburban neighborhood many homes may look the same. On closer inspection you’ll notice they are mostly of different sizes. That makes a difference. The bigger the home, the more square footage, the more expensive.

Sometimes when I’m at a listing appointment the seller will compare his house to one that sold down the street. He knows nothing about that house. It sold for this much and that’s what I should price his house at. That’s when I have to break it down. Explain, and show, what the real difference is between his house and the “one down the street”. The house down the street is 600 sq ft larger. They just recently upgraded their kitchen. It has 3 car garage ect. ect. ect.

That’s how to price your FSBO using Zillow. First find the average price per square foot of homes sold in the area over the last 6 months. Multiply that by the square footage of your house. That’s the average. Now adjust up or down depending on the features, upgrades and overall condition of your home. Be Honest with yourself.

Now What?

Once you have that price and your home has been made ready put it on the market to test your price. You’ll know if you got it right fairly quickly. If it’s a sellers market you should get attention right away. A sellers market happens when there are more buyers than there are homes for sale.

If you don’t get requests for showings it means your overpriced. Probably by a lot. If you can’t get potential buyers to come look at your hose it means they aren’t willing to pay that price for it. Personally in a strong sellers market I suggest my clients give it a week. If we haven’t received sufficient attention I recommend we lower the price.

Maybe you have had several showings but no offer. It still means your overpriced for some reason. Buyers are not willing to pay that price or even attempt an offer. If the price is attracting buyers but not offers it could mean something needs to be done to the house. It may need updating or sometimes just a good decluttering and cleaning. In that case you can elect to do the work or simply lower the price.

The only reason a house doesn’t sell is because of price and everything is relative to price.

Joel