Northwest Denver Undressed

Two Types of Seller’s Regret - You Choose

Y’know, it’s tough being a listing agent. No matter how good of a job we do, the margin for error is huge. If we sell the house too fast… we blew it on the price and “cost our seller money.” If the house takes too long to sell… well, we all know what happens then. We didn’t live up to our promises and we disappointed our seller.

Anyway, I just had a listing go under contract with multiple offers. Fortunately (for me), a good friend of mine had the same thing happen to him just a few days earlier and (unfortunately for him), his seller wasn’t prepared. She blasted him for underpricing her home and told him, rather snottily, that she had no intention of making any repairs at inspection.

So, Miss Smarty Pantz me, I warned my sellers up front about what I call “Seller’s Regret.”

Here’s the thing. In today’s market, almost every seller will experience Seller’s Regret. But it’s their choice (sort of) which type of Seller’s Regret they’ll experience.

Type 1:  “Damn! We underpriced our home! We should have priced it higher! That darn Realtor – she cost us money!”

Type 2:  “Crap. I wish we’d listened to our Realtor upfront. We should have made the repairs, staged it right away and priced it lower. Now, five months later, our listing is stale, we’ve paid $9000 of interest-only mortgage and are fair game for low-ball offers, if we get any at all. Let’s look into renting it out (heavy sigh).”

If a seller is lucky enough to experience Type 1, he may never know the pain and angst of Type 2 and he may always wonder if he should have/could have priced it higher. And that’s okay - pricing homes is an art and, especially in my Charming Old Denver market, there is no One Price for a home. Luckily, in our part of town there ARE buyers out there and if you do accidently (or even intentionally) underprice a home… it will likely still sell at market value - whatever that value may be.

  www.charmingolddenver.com