Sometimes Sellers Just Don’t “Get It”!
September 15th, 2009 categories: Pricing
The other day, while I was standing in the check-out line at a large department store at Kenwood Towne Centre I made a comment about the potential impact Nordstom’swould have on competition-and boy did I hit some raw nerves. First, as they should, the sales associates defended their store and then proceeded to share all sorts of untruths about the competition. ”… Clothing items would be much more expensive, shoes were all high end and therefore very expensive….” I told them (having been a Nordstrom shopper for 20+ years)- Nordstrom carried a lot of the same brands at the same prices as their store and the shoe department actually was staffed to wait on buyers “hand and foot”.
The sales associates were visibly shaken and clearly had no clue about their “competition”.
Just like the world of retail, some real estate sellers have no idea, or the wrong idea, about their competition. Sellers rely on agents to put together a comprehensive market analysis (CMA) based on data from the Multiple Listing Services and county tax records. And agents usually share personal knowledge about listings and sales which they have viewed offering insights about conditions and pricing. Proactive sellers may have visited open houses in their neighborhood- but most rely their agents for information. However, because many sellers do not have personal knowledge about what they are competing against, they often under or over estimate the impact of marketplace.
If you are thinking about putting your property up for sale (or already have it on the market), take an hour or so with your agent and really “look” at other listings.
First hand knowledge about the competition leads to better marketing and pricing strategies When sellers ignore or don’t understand the marketplace, they often inflate the value of their property when comparing it to other properties for sale. And just like the lack of competitive knowledge exhibited by the sales associates at Kenwood Towne Centre - some real estate sellers get defensive when a Realtor presents pricing- and reject MLS data and only focus on information gathered from neighbors or the media.
Whether you are in retail, manufacturing, stocks or real estate the sellers who “get it” about pricing usually end up with the sale.
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