We couldn't sell the house, so we RAISED the price $100,000.

[Joshua Burke]

We had a large Single Family Home on the market for a while and were not getting the right interest in the house. It's a rapidly appreciating area (One of the top ten fastest in the country!) so it's tough to gauge ARV. Finally before the holidays we had a contract at $504k (and a back up at $450k). But the buyer quickly backed out. We reanalyzed the market and adjusted the price. Up. By one hundred thousand dollars - A risky move, but the 600k buyers are more serious, and there were few high end SFH's in the area.

In 48 hours we had a full price offer.

I'm now convinced we could have pushed it higher. But no complaints.

One key to getting the high price: I offered above market sales commission: 7% total - 4 to the buyer's agent and 3 to mine. But this bonus commission was only valid above a certain price point. This move sealed the deal!

We closed yesterday and everyone is thrilled. It took way to long to renovate and sell, but the new pricing strategy was a whole lot of icing and an already sweet cake!

What clever tactics have you used to move your rentals or flips?

[Bill Gulley]

Actually, raising a price after significant market exposure is a good tactic, if you can justify the price, at most any price level.

Realtors are usually aware of listings, they can see the days on the market, after awhile it may be assumed the are issues to properties, one it's over priced or there are other issues keeping a buyer away, like condition. So under such assumptions activity drops off.

Raising the price into another value range does two things. One, it indicats that issues have been address, perhaps repairs or updating has been done. The other is that the new value range comes to the attention of a different buyer's market, those seeking homes above a certain value and below a higher value. Moving an asking price from $79,900 to $84,900 may get the attention of buyers seeking a home from 80K to 95K for example.

The higher the value the more you might move the price, I'd say moving up 100K was bold even at that value range but it probably indicated that some issue had been cured and opened to marketing door again. Nice job! :)