Never Lower the Price of a House Again!

Have you ever lowered the price of a house you have for sale as a retail property? Hopefully after you read this you will never have to do that again. Did you know that for every $1,000 in price reduction of a home it only changes the payment about $6 dollars? That is not much of an incentive for a buyer if you ask me. However, if you keep the price the same and offer to pay closing cost or carry a small second mortgage it greatly increases the number of qualified buyers that could purchase your home.

I would like to suggest that before you ever put a home on the market to retail that you get an appraisal first. Let me also say that there are appraisers out there that can stretch the value but I don't recommend going that rout. I have seen many sellers that found an appraiser to stretch the value but what good does it do when the lender is going to require either a desktop review or another drive by appraisal or even another full appraisal possibly. Besides, you don't want to get a reputation with the lenders of pumping up the values of your homes, not to mention the possibilities of fraud becoming an issue. You don't want any part of that. You want a good appraisal by a reputable appraiser.

Now, once that you have a good clean appraisal you are ready to market your property and now instead of dropping the price, offer to pay closing cost (most lenders allow up to 6% in seller concessions) and this will increase the number of buyers that can buy your home. The realtors also like it (if there is one involved) because their commission is based on the purchase price.

Another way to increase the number of buyers that can qualify for your home is to use some of the seller concessions to buy down the rate. Builders do it all the time. You can buy the rate down for the life of the loan or just for the first few years. This makes for a lower payment and thus more buyers can qualify for your house! This one technique can save a deal.