John M. Lee: How to Sell in Today's Market

With the real estate market slowing down, it is much harder to sell a home in today's environment. Properties linger on the market for a long time and prices have declined somewhat. So, if you are a seller that absolutely needs to sell, how would you go about it to insure a successful sale?

The number of sales in San Francisco has decreased substantially. According to the San Francisco's Multiple Listing Service statistics, about 4,900 transactions occurred in 2008, as compared with the peak volume year of 8,100 in 2004, a decrease of 39 percent. Also, the days on the market prior to sale has increased substantially so sales are taking longer to complete.

Therefore, with the statistics against you, here are some hints for you. First of all, be sure that your property is in tip-top shape so it can stand out against your competition. Make sure that the buyer's first impression is good and the home is clean on the outside. Make sure that the exterior is painted, lawn mowed and no garbage or junk exposed.

Also, inside the home clean and paint if necessary and remove all clutter, moving extra furniture to storage if needed. If possible, hire a staging company to stage the home and make it a showcase. Professionals have a better feel on what buyers are looking for and can tailor your home to appeal to the broadest range of buyers.

Hire an experienced agent who works your area and who can tell you about the prices of homes currently for sale. Ask him or her how your home will be marketed? Is the marketing plan well planned and thought out? Is there a multifaceted attack to expose the home properly? How will the home be marketed on the Internet?

Statistics are showing that more than 80 percent of buyers look on the web first before visiting the listing. Is yours going to be on enough Internet web sites? How will the photos and presentations look online? Ask your agent for their opinion of value and prepare a comparative market analysis of homes that are currently on the market and that have sold recently.

Pay particular attention to the price as that is crucial to today's marketing. With listing and sales data so readily available, buyers have a good sense on price. So, if you are priced high expecting to get offers to negotiate up, you might not even get an offer to begin the process. Buyers will look at your home, compare it with other homes that are on the market, and make offers on the ones that are priced more attractively first. So yours might just remain on the market for a long time.

If your property does not sell within a month or so, and all the marketing has been done properly, re-evaluate your asking price and see if that's what is preventing buyers from making offers. If it is, then a price adjustment is necessary. In the past few years, pricing has not been a critical issue unless it was way off. And for a while there, it almost did not matter; whatever it was priced, it sold over that amount.

But now pricing must be accurate and extremely attractive for buyers to be motivated enough to make an offer. There are no magic pills for selling in today's market. We are back to a market where experience matters and where hard work will pay off.

Please also keep in mind that the market is constantly changing and pricing is constantly moving. It might not always be changing in a positive direction, so if you need to sell, stay ahead of pricing trends. Otherwise, you might be chasing it down.

John M. Lee is the current president-elect for the San Francisco Association of Realtors. If you have any questions about real estate, call him at (415) 447-6231 or e-mail johnlee@isellsf.com.