Setting the price for selling your home may cause you a bad headache! (athome.lu)

As you try to determine a realistic price to sell a property, quite many, even complex criteria have to be taken into consideration. The support of real experts is fundamental in this process otherwise subjective factors will distort the estimate so that the property remains unsold or, as you have to rush, you end up by selling it below its market value.   

Are you planning to sell your house or apartment? If this is the case, you first have to be able to fix its price thereby making sure that it corresponds to its real market value – in other terms a good price for you – and that – something you shall not underestimate especially under the current, difficult circumstances – it sounds attractive to potential buyers.

Unless you are a real expert in doing this, the determination of that selling price may cause you a terrible headache. First of all, the list of objective criteria to be taken into account is very long. And secondly the emotional relationship with the property, you may want it or not, will impede an objective approach to this process, not to forget that every single seller quite logically wants to make a profit out of this transaction by taking into consideration the conditions he faced as he purchased that property, the repairs that have been done, etc.

The adoption of personal criteria is quite evidently not the right way to determine the selling price. Its real market value stems from a series of objective economic factors and is determined also by a series of features such as location, environment, access to public transportation etc.

Experts are indispensable

In this sense the only people that are capable of determining a correct selling price are real estate agents and experts, not simply because they know the latest trends of the market, but also for they will take into consideration all the various factors that have an impact on the price of that property that they will surely visit and analyze in depth. However, do not hesitate to ask for the support of several experts, especially in order to get a series of estimates that you may then compare. Two opinions are always better than one…   

Compare and compare

All this quite evidently does not imply you won’t be touring your neighborhood just to have a look at the other properties on sale in order to make a comparison with yours, positive or negative this may turn out to be. In doing this you shall always make sure you will be comparing properties with similar features (total surface, location, interior and exterior, construction date etc.). If you start comparing a palace with a small house of an industrial town you will only end up by coming to a series of aberrations.

Quite evidently some additional factors will impact on the final price and once more, only a real expert is able to evaluate and estimate the effect of this process. If some repairs are to be done, for example, this will certainly not add any value to your property since the buyer will see all this as additional costs that he will inevitably try to deduct from the selling price.

We shall also stress that any price that is being showed on the web or by real state agencies does not necessarily correspond to the final price whereby the property is eventually sold. All of these transactions are the result of long negotiations and the final price will be sealed – somehow secretly – only in the deeds worked out by the notary.

Which objective criteria?

Apart from its surface, the main criteria to refer to as you determine the selling price of your property can be regrouped into three categories and namely its location, its general condition and a series of features related to its interior and exterior.

As far as the location is concerned, you shall take into account if the property is situated next to shops, schools, sports and cultural centers, not to forget the access to public transportation. Other factors are also its orientation and the quality of the surroundings, in other words the view you may enjoy from there. The general environment is also extremely important, especially in terms of noise, and you shall evidently collect information also about any development project that will be involving your neighborhood.     

As far as the general condition is concerned, quite evidently the energetic performance of that property is the main criterion to refer to, especially as it has an evident impact on the works and repairs to be eventually implemented by your buyer.

Finally, as you focus on its interior and exterior, you will easily determine the strengths and weaknesses of your property, in terms of general arrangement of the various rooms, surface of the living room, availability of a toilet that is separated from the bathroom, provision of an equipped kitchen, general architectural quality, availability of a balcony, garage, alarm system etc. As for the exterior, the availability of a garden is certainly a plus, influenced by its size, appearance, as well as additional facilities (terrace, swimming pool etc.).