Don’t let “sold over asking” fool you. In a seller’s market (which for all intents and purposes we have bene for 19 years here in Toronto) it is common practice to under price a property to entice more buyers to come through the door. The more people or to borrow a TV term “eyeballs” to see the space, the more interest is generated which ultimately leads to more offers…you can see where this is going now…more offers means more money for the seller. Job well done for the listing agent.
The eye-roller for me is when realtors market their sold listings as “sold over asking” (picture the flyers, for sale sign riders outside the home, newspapers, vlogs, you name it) – I don’t do this because I would feel like I would be duping the pubic. I feel that I need to be truthful and transparent.
A truthful statement would be: “I under listed this property to drive prices up and it worked. There is NO WAY my seller would have accepted the asking price because it was far too low and unrealistic! I was also false advertising, oops. But hey! Now I’m in the newspaper being quoted which will bring me more business!!!”
Newspapers love the headlines stating “sold over asking”, “$250K over asking”, “15 offers, house sold for $150,000 over asking!!!”. Well, how below market value was the asking price in the first place?!? When you see this please, please, please stop and question whether it is sensationalist writing or posturing by the agent…it shouldn’t take you long to see this after reading my blog today. At least I hope
Headlines and marketing can be very misleading… I was in advertising, PR, marketing and events for most of my life (family business and my the corporate world here in TO and in London, England), until I became a Realtor more than a decade ago. Much of these industries are built on spin doctor work, how to sell more of something, how to better position the product in a beneficial light what others may not necessarily want or “may now know that they want it, yet” (a common quote in boardrooms).
