Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1527944
4 OVER- PRICING strategy can backfire as buyers may begin to see the listing as stale, reducing interest and offers. Jerrod Meyer, Whitetail Properties Southeast Colo- rado Land Specialist, says overpricing can negatively limit online searches for the property. "For example, if a property is worth $3 million and the seller wants $4 million, but a buyer's top search is for $3.5 million, that may never show up because the asking price exceeds the search parameters." "Sometimes sellers have unreasonable expectations, and we have to bring them back to the reality of the market," Meyer adds. "Having to reduce the price is not an option we want to consider. The more time on the market, the more the seller's power is reduced. People look at it and wonder if there are issues with the property, and it starts losing its attractiveness." Whitetail Properties Southwest Missouri Land Spe- cialist Brian Utecht and West-Central Minnesota Land Specialist Jason Ziegler voiced similar caution. "Most buyer activity occurs at the very beginning of a listing," Utecht says. "Many buyers want to be first in line. If a property is not correctly priced, it can take two price reductions, resulting in lost time and value. There's also the risk it won't sell at all due to the M Many factors go into determining the correct price for a property sale. It's common for sellers to have higher-than-realistic expectations about the value of their property. But one of the biggest mistakes they can make is setting a price above what the market will realistically support — a strategy that can result in lost time and money. Dustin Prievo, Whitetail Properties South-Central Pennsylvania Land Specialist notes that because of online tools, buyers today are more informed than ever and know when a property is overpriced. Buyers can be driven by the fear of missing out on a good deal, and when a property is priced competitively in a hot market, it creates urgency for buyers to act quickly. "If we don't price according to local market con- ditions, we risk losing that sense of urgency, and instead, we attract 'deal hunters' who will wait for the price to drop," Prievo says. "Once the property sits on the market for a while and eventually drops below its original listing price, those buyers will often come in with even lower offers, which can result in selling for less than what we could have achieved if it had been priced competitively in the market from the start." He adds that sellers often think that starting high gives them room to negotiate, but in reality, this THE COST OF YOUR PROPERTY IN THE MARKET