How to Price

How to price your Durango Real Estate

What is the fair market value of your Durango real estate or home? It is what your house will sell for with reasonable marketing efforts, in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, that definition probably isn't enough. What you really want to know is how to estimate that value ahead of time.

You don't want to just guess. Even an "educated guess" from looking around at what others are asking can be substantially off. The result could be either selling your home too cheap or asking too much. The latter may seem like a lesser problem, but pricing too high can have serious consequences.

Determining Fair Market Value

To begin with, forget the word "fair" altogether. Fair can mean different things to different people, but it has no real meaning in real estate valuation. You can call it fair or unfair, but the buyers will pay what they will pay, and that what determines what you can sell your home for.

This is called "market value," but you can forget the "market" part as well, if you want, because what other value could mean anything? An "imagined value?" A "if-times-were-better-value?" A "what-it's-worth-to-me value?" So how do you know what your home is worth? You look at other houses people are buying, that actually SOLD. Specifically, you look at houses near yours (within a half-mile, but the closer the better) that have sold recently (the last six months), and are similar to yours (as much as possible). Several of these "comparable" sales will give you an idea of what your home should sell for. Our experienced agents can help figure that out with a comprehensive Durango real estate CMA.

Even though you won't find a house exactly like your what you are doing is adjusting the sales prices of those other sold homes to see what they would have sold for if they were just like yours. It isn't as complicated as it sounds, but it isn't as accurate as we would like either.

Just remember that a fair market value may or may not seem fair to you. Also, the estimate of it may or may not be close to the true sales price. It depends on the market, the comps and how much home people are getting for the money... so make sure your home is staged well.

Our agents know the Durango real estate market and can offer tips and suggestions to help boost the sale of your home. Pricing is always a touchy subject but by pricing it right the first time you can be sure you won't chase the market down  and be stuck bringing money to closing.

Connections in real estate: See our contact in Enterprise real estate for all Fort Rucker relocations, Enterprise rentals and homes and property in the Enterprise AL real estate area.  For New Mexico real estate see our Ruidoso Homes expert with Century 21 in Ruidoso.