Why is this house priced so much higher than the others?

That is a question I received from a local home buyer recently, about a listing he found on the internet (not one of mine!). I thought it would be a good excercise for home sellers, who are holding onto the idea that their over-priced house will sell for more than the rest, to read through the answer, from the perspective of the buyer. Ask yourself - if I was buying a house, would any of these reasons entice me to pay more for this house?

My Answer:

As you can tell, this house does not have more bedrooms, bathrooms, or square footage than others. All the similar homes you've found are nearly new, have granite counters, wood floors, and stainless steel appliances.They do appear to be essentially the same, and the only way to know if this one has some outstanding feature that the listing doesn't mention in the marketing, is to visit the home.

Of course, most home buyers would just move on to the next one, and leave this one 'on the shelf'. But if you do become interested in making an offer, a good real estate agent could help by providing comparative sales along with the offer. They could try to convince the seller that your offer is fair, without irritating them and blowing the deal. In other words, you'd need an agent who could handle it with some 'finesse'.

If I was your agent - working on your behalf and at no cost to you - I would preview this house and the others, or take you to see them all. But for now, I would just assume this house is priced higher due to one of the reasons below.

"I paid $XXX for it, and refuse to sell it for less."
"We put $XXX into the remodeling, and want our money back." (One man actually told me, his wife did all the extensive country-style decor herself, and that made their house worth $20,000 more than the others.)
"We can't afford the home we want to buy unless we get $XXX for this one."
"My neighbor (or friend, or co-worker, or the grocery clerk who used to be a real estate agent) said I should get $XXX for it."

I'll bet I can think of a dozen more. Of course, home buyers won't pay too much for a house because of that kind of reasoning, as I'm sure you know full well.

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