How To Select The Right Marketing Price For Your Property

Leo Edwards • February 25, 2020

You will know if you have got it right because the market will show up and put offers on your property.

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When putting your home on the market, it's easy to get caught up in choosing the sales price for your home. After all, more money means more choices, perhaps it would mean you could afford a more expensive home or neighborhood, buy a new car, take a family trip to Europe or become debt free. Uninformed sellers often choose the agent who suggests the highest listing price, which can be the worst mistake a seller can make.
The truth is it doesn't really matter how much money you think your home is worth. Nor does it really matter what your agent or five others just like them think. The only person whose opinion matters is the buyers making offers (The Market). Pricing a home should always be a statistical exercise involving comparing similar recent sales, making adjustments for the differences among them, tracking market movements and monitoring local current inventory - all to come up with a range and opinion of value. 

While no two appraisals are exactly the same, they are generally close to each other, it's an educated guess but it's ALWAYS the market that will dictate the price.

Pricing For The Optimum Result

How do you know when your ASKING PRICE is about right? Lets look at the below example of a property with a $550,000 MARKET PRICE
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Pick A Time Or Pick A Price

Homes sell at a price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. If a home is priced too low (priced under competing properties) the seller should receive multiple offers to drive up the price to market value. So there is little danger in pricing a home too low. The real danger lies in pricing it too high and selecting your agent solely on opinion of value.
A graph showing a market value of $ 560,000
As an example, if your house market value is $560,000 and you were to put it on the market for:

$530,000 - sale might take 24 hours
$550,000 - sale might take 24 days
$580,000 - sale might take 24 weeks
$650,000 - sale might take 2-5 years

Start where YOU are comfortable

Set a starting price high enough to protect the property's value but still appealing enough to attract the best buyers.

Getting the price right in the first few weeks is critical as this will mean your house will be on the market for a shorter time but you will achieve on or above market value.

Advantages Of Proper Pricing

A diagram showing the market value of an agent and buyer
1. Faster sale
2. Less inconvenience
3. Increased salesperson response
4. Means more money to sellers
5. Better response from advertising & sign calls
6. Finance gets approved
7. Attracts higher offers

Why Do Sellers Overprice? Lots of reasons:


  • They feel entitled to make a profit
  • They feel their home is superior to other similar homes
  • They want a return on improvements and repairs
  • They need to buy in another suburb, which is far more expensive
  • They want to buy a bigger, more expensive home
  • They want to pay off loans, credit cards etc
  • They want funds for retirement or some other financial goal
  • They think buyers want to negotiate
  • They think real estate agents can get it sold for more if they just work harder
  • They don’t understand the ageless fundamental principle in that; in over 95% of cases, the best price is obtained when the property is first on the market.


Did you notice that not a single one of those reasons has anything to do with the current market value of the home?


Remember:


The opinion of the market may not be kind, but it is never wrong. You will know if you have got it right because the market will show up and put offers on your property.


How to Ensure You Achieve The Best Market Price

GET INSTANT PROPERTY VALUE

GET A PROPERTY PRICE REPORT
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Suburb Report

Find out what's hot & what's sold for what in your local suburb  

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Got Questions? We've Got Answers!


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"Your feature on our property was stunning and instrumental in the outcome we achieved. It's really nice to see such a fresh approach to selling properties"
Nic Griffiths
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“The reach of their digital marketing saw us have a buyer from outside the community make a special trip to see our house and it was sold within a week of the pictures being posted”
Karen Milkins-Hendry
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“We both would like to show our appreciation and gratitude for all your hard work and effort in helping to sell our property which had previously been on the market for 5 months.”
Tegan & Trent May

POWERFUL SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Reach potential buyers where they spend most of their time, social media. The largest real estate advertising audience is on social media which has the ability to reach active or passive buyers with an audience of 17 million on Facebook and 5 million on Instagram.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING?

  • Advertise your property to thousands of relevant potential buyers, investors and tenants who you’d otherwise miss.
  • Create the best possible conditions for a great price and short sales process.
  • Advanced, smart property targeting shows your ads to people identified as:
ACTIVE BUYERS: Interested in a property like yours, actively looking right now
PASSIVE BUYERS: Interested in a property like yours, not actively looking right now
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A collage of pictures of houses that are sold and under contract
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It's been a busy week for the team at Inverloch 3996 with three properties finding their new owners and another four going under offer. If your agent's strategy stops at a board in your yard advertising their agency (not your property) and basic property portal listings and a picture in the window, you're fighting a modern market with outdated weapons.
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By Leo Edwards June 10, 2025
An in-depth analysis of Inverloch's real estate market exposes alarming trends in agent performance and pricing accuracy that every property seller needs to know.
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By Leo Edwards May 2, 2025
When it's time to sell your home in Inverloch, one of the most enticing propositions from real estate agents can be the promise of a high sale price. It's natural to gravitate toward the agent who values your property the highest - after all, who doesn't want to maximise their return? However, the recent sales data from Inverloch tells a compelling story about why this strategy could backfire and potentially cost you thousands.
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