Price Range Makes a Difference in How Easy it is to Sell Your Home

by Karen Goodman on November 13, 2008

This weekend I sold one of my listings in 2 days. A number of factors helped it sell fast including appropriate pricing, updated features and favorable supply & demand levels. However, another big factor in our quick sale is that starter homes are selling at a much higher rate than more expensive homes this year.

In contrast, I have a home listed in the Ladue School District, one of the top school districts in the region, that is in a much tougher price range. We are priced well at $650,000. Traditionally, homes between $600-800s sold pretty easily in this prestigious part of town.

My instincts were that since summer, the homes that have been selling are mostly starter homes. But since I’m not one to just go with my instincts, I did an analysis to compare how homes are selling at different price ranges in both St. Louis County and in the Ladue school district.

Since June, over 60% of the homes in St. Louis County sold for $200,000 or below. By going up just a bit higher, we find that almost 80% of homes sold were below $300,000 and 87% of homes were below $400,000.

With almost 9 in 10 homes selling below $400,000, there just isn’t much demand for homes that are priced higher.

Take a look at the additional information in the table below showing days on market until a contract was accepted (DOM) and the percentage that sellers came down from their final list price (% Sale Price to List Price).

St. Louis County homes sales:

In contrast, homes are selling in the higher price ranges in the Ladue school district. Amazingly, 20% of the Ladue sales were priced above $1 million. Another 39% of the homes sold for $400,000 or below. With 6 in 10 homes selling at the extreme price ranges for the area, there just isn’t much demand for homes that traditionally would have been at the most popular price points.

Ladue School District home sales:

With only 8% of the Ladue sales since June in the $600s, there just aren’t many buyers looking at homes like my listing. As a result, my sellers have dropped their price to a level that should attract interest and are in the process of making some additional updates based on the feedback we have received.

We are still ahead of the pack since the average days on market for homes in our price range is 185 days. Though we are only at day 43, we aren’t going to just sit around and wait for a buyer. My clients and I are working together to make it happen.