October 30, 2006
Response to Price Reduction as a Last Resort
Recently I received a response for my previous post on the Price Reduction:
“Actually it depends, First, if the home is not getting showings, then no amount of staging will change that. No showings, is a pricing issue, 100% of the time. Now if the house IS being shown and not getting offers then the issue may be related to something other than price. In this case, staging could help. Maybe. Depending on your market. In my market, vacant homes sale much quicker. So even though I believe staging has it’s place. It is definitely not a cure all.”
Actually, true, yes, it depends. But actually, no, staging will help driving foot traffic, at least in SF bay area. In areas where staging is not common, it probably wouldn’t make sense at all to stage. Therefore I said in my last paragraph that if staging makes sense, do it. If it doesn’t make sense in your area, obviously don’t.
In SF bay area, 9 out of 10 homes are staged. So if your home is not, it is very easy for buyers to walk out of the door immediately. Also, internet previewing is very common in SF Bay Area, a staged home will help driving foot traffic to the home. Seeing home in person is very time consuming because of traffic, so now most people do their previewing online prior leaving the door. It’s like online shopping, why would you actually leave your home and spend all these time and money and gas to see something that already looks unappealing online?
If you are in a market where staging is not common, true, it wouldn’t make sense for you to stage.
It’s also very true that staging is not a cure, that’s why I said that “if it makes sense to you to stage, do it before you take that price reduction.”
To drive my point again, I really really think Price Reduction is a LAST RESORT.
Selling home is a lot of stress, and I feel that most home sellers are not Donald Trumps. I could very much feel her pain for paying TWO mortgages in her voice, not to mention on top of just having a child and moved to another side of the country. Money is just pouring out of the door. It’s true that price is a big determination point. If the price is bad, then NO amount of staging will work. But in her case, where Realtor had provided a good price point, it was unfortunate the Devil’s Slide was closed due to natural disaster which was out of the everyone’s control, staging will help to sell that home, not to mention her competitors ARE staged.
If I were to sell my home, I would want to salvage as much as net profit as possible. I personally would want to try any possibilities before taking that price reduction which I would lost my profits significantly.
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