Selling a Home in Monrovia: It’s Really a Light Show!
You could say that selling a home—in Monrovia or anywhere else in the nation—is in large part “a light show.” When you dissect marketing statistics that trace the path of the vast majority of buyers, it’s clear that the first sense that comes into play in the selling of a home is sight: either a first view of the online listing, a glimpse of a property with a “for sale” sign out front, or an image in an ad or printed handout. As the saying goes, “the eyes have it.”
Selling Monrovia homes really begins with the photography. Professional photographers know that whenever they aim their cameras at something they intend to capture, as important as the actual object itself is the quality of the light that illuminates it. They talk about the “shape” of the light and whether it’s “hard” (meaning shadows are prominent) or “soft” (shadows innocuous). It’s why the pros will time a listing’s emblematic “curb appeal” shot for the sun to be in the most flattering position. Inside, they may use as many as three or four hidden slave strobe lights to brighten larger rooms where the natural light is photographically uneven.
With few exceptions, light and bright is the rule of thumb for what succeeds best in selling a home. That guideline explains why most agree that the preferred wall colors are variations of “pale” this or “light” that. The perennial favorites are light beige, pale taupe, and pale gray-blue. The common denominator for room color recommendations is high to moderate reflectivity—in other words: light and bright! A recent published analysis of over 32,000 photos of sold homes seems to have been a largely unnecessary exercise: the leaders were (you guessed it) pale gray blue and light beige.
The same thinking leads to the good practice of preceding every showing and open house with a quick trip through the home, opening blinds and curtains and turning on lamps and overheads.
But there are exceptions, of course. Monrovia homes with media rooms can often benefit from dimmed lighting that accentuates media screens. Likewise, a rich, darkly paneled study can do the same. Both make an interesting contrast with the rest of the home (and a dramatic break in the whole presentation). When showing a client’s property, some agents lead the guests on a predetermined route through the property. The idea is to manage the progression of impressions to achieve maximum impact.
When you begin to contemplate selling your own Monrovia home, even if it’s not being planned for a while, I hope you will give me a call. I’ll come out so we can chat about some low-intensity preparations that will pave the way for a quick and easy eventual sale. There’s never any obligation—and there are often some early steps you can take that result in meaningful results!
Pricing Your Monrovia House isn’t Exactly Science
The science of pricing a house in Monrovia isn’t really a science.
The thing about science that makes it reliable is that its findings can be confirmed experimentally. If Galileo drops a feather and a lead weight from the Tower of Pisa to prove something about gravity, anyone else can trot right up there and repeat the experiment. If the results are always the same, we’re in the realm of science.
Pricing Monrovia houses may not be pure art, but it’s a cinch it’s not science, either. You can’t repeat a pricing experiment because no two Monrovia houses are exactly alike (even the same models in a development are situated differently). And even if you sold the same house two times, the pool of possible buyers is changing all the time; the competitive landscape as represented in the moment’s Monrovia listings, likewise; even the news of the day can affect the sales climate.
Further muddying the waters is the emotional component most of us feel for the places we call home. Even after the most dispassionate Monrovia homeowner has shed any such baggage, there remain two distinct ways to value a home. There is the value it can be sold for, and there is what it is worth to your own family. Hopefully, they aren’t terribly different; but in any case, it’s the former that’s important when it comes to selling.
Once we accept that no pricing strategy can be confirmed experimentally, the best procedure is to follow some general guidelines that have wide acceptance. I advise my clients to approach the pricing of their Monrovia house in several ways—
- Canvass the market the same way your future buyers will. See what comparable properties have sold for recently and the asking prices currently listed. Determine where yours belongs. This is one place where my research will be a major help.
- Once you’re satisfied that you know the range where your property fits, look for “holes” in that range. Many times there will be a noticeable gap in asking prices within your range—and one good strategy is to become the lone listing that fills it.
- Once you’ve arrived at a price that seems right, another strategy is to lower it to the next “99” number. If pricing your house led you to a $405,000 asking price, consider notching it down to $399,999. Everybody knows what you’re doing, but it’s such common practice that people don’t regard it as a ruse. It is worth doing because human beings can’t help but react to that second price as if it’s significantly lower!
Pricing your Monrovia house properly is just one of the many steps that go into a successful sales campaign. Give me a call to chat about your own situation and goals: there’s never a charge nor any obligation for sharing the latest market information!