Tuesday, January 16, 2018

I’ll Never Pay More than List Price!

I’ll Never Pay More than List Price!

Many homebuyers are not willing to pay more than the seller’s asking price, and who can blame them.  Because everyone knows that sellers always list their home for more than they really want to leave a little “wiggle” room, right?  WRONG!

According to Zillow, buyers in 2017 paid more than the asking price 24% of the time for all U.S. home sales — a 6.2 percentage point increase from 2012!*

In Houston, 32.6% of all home sales in 2017 were sold over list price with a median of $9,796 over the asking price!*

So why would anyone pay more than list price?  Several reasons, low inventory of available homes has been the number one contributing factor.  As a buyer, you have selected the area you’d like to live; maybe because of a particular school district, or proximity to work, etc.  Therefore, you are in competition with hundreds of other buyers that are just as qualified to purchase a new listing.  In an effort to leverage your offer and more it more attractive, you choose to pay a premium.

Absolutely nothing wrong with making an offer more than list price, as long as your real estate agent has done their homework for you.  A competent real estate agent should prepare a CMA (Comparable Market Analysis) which should help you decide if the property is priced fairly.  With the increasing prices in the Houston area, a premium price may be worthwhile and justifiable.

So if you can justify your offer, don’t be afraid to offer more than list price for the home you want.  If you don’t, you may end up with a home you really didn’t want, or worse yet, no home at all!

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