The highest appraisal isn’t always the best one, and price isn’t the only factor you should consider.
Charles explains how choosing an agent is one of the most important steps in selling your home.
“One of the things when engaging an agent a lot of people get a little fright taken in by is that it’s the highest appraisal price.
When I’m doing an appraisal, I like to look at a number of factors. One, is previous sales, and I generally only keep it to six months. Second is to do the research on the market – is it growing, is it going down, so that will allow me a little bit of a projectionist appraisal, if that makes sense, in terms of what may or may not happen.
So one of the big dangers of accepting the highest appraisal range if you’re not really delving into the research of the agent is that the house may stay on the market for a significant period of time. If it does do that, it becomes stale, and then buyers start to think ‘what’s wrong with it’, and as a result, price then starts to go back down.
So leading on what I just mentioned about accepting the two higher appraisal range, the biggest danger is that the research shows that the first 3 to 4 weeks is when most buyers will come through. If you get it wrong, if it’s too high and you haven’t made any adjustment for it, you’ll miss those buyers.”
– Charles Wiggett
