Pricing Real Estate in Darien, CT
Posted by 
Al Filippone Associates on Monday, May 4, 2009
Far too often Darien homeowners fall into the pricing trap! They make one or more of the following mistakes:
- List their home for the amount they “need” to make on the house, and then add 5% to 10% for negotiating room.
- Interview realtors and list their home with the one that gave them the highest recommended list price.
- Accept homes that are larger, newer, a different style, in different area, or have significantly more land as comparable when they are not.
- Don’t take into account resale issues or incurables (busy street, power lines, close to highway or railroad tracks, etc). These can affect the list price as much as 20%!
Use these steps to analyze the information presented by a Darien real estate professional (it’s next to impossible to sell your home on your own), and determine the APPROPRIATE list price for your home:
Review carefully all of the comparable homes – active, pending and sold presented in the CMA (comparative market analysis) prepared by the realtor. Make sure all are:
- Located in your town and your general area within town.
- Dealing with similar incurables as your home. If you live on a busy street, you shouldn’t compare yours to homes on quieter streets when at all possible. The same applies for the other “incurables” above.
- Similar in square footage. If your home is 3500 square feet, the comparable homes being used should be approximately between 2500 and 4500 square feet. Don’t use basement square footage, even if it is nicely finished.
- Similar style, age and condition. If you live in a 1940′s colonial with recently renovated kitchen and baths, you wouldn’t compare it to 1970′s ranch that has never been updated, and vice versa.
- Within 3 to 4 months of the close date for the sold properties. If there are less than 3 or 4 comparable sales in that time frame, the realtor will have to broaden the parameters a bit. He/she may also need to extend out to 6 months if the subject home is unique. In a situation where there are no comps, within the past 6 months, then you need to go to plan b.
Plan b requires a realtor to:
- Determine the town’s average sale price for the current quarter of the year. (1st quarter 2009 or year to date)
- Determine the town’s average sale price for the same quarter during the past year. (1st quarter 2008 for Jan1, 2008 to May 5, 2008)
- Determine the percent of market change.
- Select quality comps that closed with in that quarter of the past year. (1st Q ’08)
Next use the average sale price and average dollar per square foot of the sold homes (multiply the average dollar per square foot by the square footage of your home) to give you a good idea of where your home should be priced. If you are using comps from the previous year, you will then need to apply the percent of year to year market change.
Finally take a look at the active homes. Your goal (if you really want to sell your house) is to position your home so that your home offers as much, if not more than the competition, but at a lower price. (By more I mean mostly size and updates.) Forget about that 5% or 10% extra for “negotiating room”. Today’s buyers are savvy. They know where home values are and if they don’t, their agent will teach them. They will pay asking price or close to it when they know the value is there. But if you add in that “negotiating room”, the value is lost and they will most likely pass over your home.
Real Estate Market Statistics for Darien CT
Map of Darien CT Real Estate Listings
