American Land Magazine

5 stigma of being on the market for an extended period. It can create a very negative vibe on the property." Ziegler says overshooting on price is a terrible strategy. "The days on the market are an important factor in our market climate," he states. "If we price too high, there is a good chance the property will sit on the market for an extended period, and we will get into the price reduction game. Unfortunately it's very common with many other brokerages and is known as 'buying a listing' just to get it knowing full well it won't sell." A COMPREHENSIVE PRICING APPROACH The overpricing trend has long been observed across many categories of real estate and market cycles. Whitetail Properties' decades of experience and success in marketing rural land consistently shows that pricing a property appropriately from the start attracts the highest and best offers quickly, most often resulting in the most money for the property. "I offer a three-pronged pricing strategy for every property — whether it's a farm, house or vacant land," explained Prievo. "This includes comparable sales, my own custom-designed detailed property assess- ment and my knowledge of the local market. These approaches have proven to be very accurate to the current market. From there, I present sellers options while emphasizing the higher we go, the smaller the buyer pool, requiring a highly motivated buyer." Jerrod Meyer relies on a clear understanding of the market and staying realistic for the best results. "I typically run market values and look at comparable sales, but it always equates to what's realistic for a property," Meyer said. "Sometimes an evaluation even comes in higher than what a seller was originally expecting. I have valued properties over what the seller has in mind, based on real factors and a deep understanding of the property's value that allow us to price a little higher than what they were thinking. The current challenge is many sellers are still operating on the previous COVID frame of mind — that they can FAIR MARKET VALUE LOST VALUE TIME BUYER INTEREST AND ACTIVITY PRICE PRICE REDUCTION $ FINAL PRICE INTIAL LIST PRICE $$$ PRICE REDUCTION PRICE REDUCTION " We're watching inventory closely. If it continues to rise and the buyer pool would shrink we might begin to find ourselves moving from a seller controlled market into more of a buyer's market. We strive to continue educating seller's about the potential shift in market prices to avoid overpricing the market and running the risk of properties staying on the market for extended periods of time, growing stagnant."

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