I like to say: Buy Sell Have Fun ...... and KNOW THE NUMBERS. 

Know the Numbers: Thinking about selling your home? As an economist (by schooling) I think the numbers don't make decisions but they help clients understand facts - via math, logic, probabilities, data, numbers and statistics.... does selling make sense (or dollars and cents).

Selling your home. It's a tough decision. For most property owners it's a big decision, actually it's a huge decision. When you're looking for a partner to help you negotiate the complexities of selling a home, you've come to the right place. The experience, dedication and strong communication you'll receive here will help ensure the successful and profitable sale of your home:

1. The Local Advantage - Take advantage of a broad spectrum of technologies and tools to support the sale of your home from start to close. Here are a few used regularly: The MLS, or Multiple Listing Service locally that is the Columbus Board of Realtors. While I am licensed to help clients buy or sell anywhere in Ohio. I truly work in and around Columbus & Central Ohio. That's essentially the areas covered by the Columbus MLS. 

2. Know the Numbers - You'll see this term frequently in what I cover and talk about in person. Over nearly 20 years in real estate, I've learned the most difficult subject is: "PRICE."

If you are considering selling your property, you definitely want to get fair value. Ideally you want to get a premium value. The key is how to determine fair value, or high value or even the lowest value. 

Why is Price such a difficult subject. Because most often people buying or selling have opinions. Thoughts. Ideas. Or partial information or facts. Even biases. If you lined up 10 buyers all pre-approved for $500,000 and they all say they want to buy a home - the size of your home. In the same area, same neighborhood, same school district. We'll say they are all perfect candidates. Your home is priced at $499,900.

The range of outcomes from the 10 would likely be: (2) say they'd never purchase the home for various reasons. Such as the direction the home faces. Maybe the yard and landscaping. Or the colors on the home or in the home. The age of the roof or HVAC, or windows. Maybe it is because what is beside the home, or across the street from the home, or behind the home. For any number of reasons- they are absolute "No's." 

(6) would say it's OK, and for the right discount, 50% to 5% off they'd be your buyer. Not ideal.

(1) says they like it and they will pay the ask price. That's encouraging!

And (#10) is hopefully the one who says "it's absolutely perfect!" Exactly what we are looking for! For this buyer, they want to make sure some other buyer doesn't get it - they offer over the list price, and in some cases, various incentives to the seller to make  sure they select their offer.

So while on paper they all looked like perfect buyer candidates - most in fact were no's or not willing to pay the fair, or desired price.

Getting to Fair price - Just like the pool of 10 perfect buyers assessing the value from $0 to a premium, I believe in knowing facts.

What are pertinent, relevant facts? What other people are paying. For similar properties. Similar in size. Similar in age. Similar in lot size. I typically look back at the past 1-3 years and document those sales on paper. If the home to be sold is 2,000 SF with 2.5 baths, a basement and a 2 car garage - then I'll typically look at 3+ bedrooms , 2+ baths, with a basement and a garage, in the same school district, and size range of 1700- 2,800 SF. While the total sales vary, the search generally produces 20-60 sales in a year, and over say 2.5 years we have perhaps 100 sales. In each time frame, there is a low price, high price and an average price. The average is where I tend to focus because that's pretty close to where 75% of all sales tend to be. 

The key is this provides real facts. Not opinions. It's not the answer. This is information and I believe it can be very helpful understand the big picture. While you might know what the home across the street sold for. Or what the home next to you sold for. Those two are just a small part of the 100 sales that might have happened and this gives sellers a more complete view of the house market in their neighborhood.

3. Video and on some drone video - If a picture is worth a 1,000 words then they say video is worth a million. Some listings I will do a video of the exterior and a full walk through. Some properties a drone is used overhead and often they conduct the walk through as well. 

4. Internet Advertising - Since the lion's share of home buyers starts their search on the internet, top placement on search engines is essential. You'll gain access to placement on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and many other websites. This will maximize your exposure and bring a large number of potential buyers to view information about your home.

5. Email Campaigns - It's important to "work the network." We can work together to identify the right people to target your home-and get in touch with them by email to drive excitement and interest.

6. Door-to-door - on new listings I will generally create a handout and invite neighbors to the first Open House. While the first instict for owners is why invite the nosey neighbors - it's actually exactly what you want to do. They talk to family, friends and other people and create more awareness on the property.

7. Personal Touch - Of course, technology alone won't sell your home. Face-to-face interaction provides the advantage to sell your home-and you won't have to worry about a thing. The details will be handled with care and constant communication, to ensure the marketing and sale of your home go smoothly.

What about Zillow? Or a Zillow estimate?

The tools available online are better than having none, but they are not overall as accurate as one prepared by a local real estate agent - such as myself: Michael Bishop, The Cooler Real Estate Agent. No one, or no one system is perfect. I'd recommend using Zillow to get a general idea of your property's value.

However, there are an endless number of factors which can make any online estimate far off.  An example might be, the school system changing over different areas. If the mapped area covers parts of 3 different school systems, just this one variable can skew all the numbers. If one school is an A+ rated, a second school district is B rated and a third is C rated (hypothetical examples) then the value assigned could be far from accurate because they all get weighed, or weighted into the averages.  

Another problem with the online tools is getting the specs lined up so a 2,000 square foot home isn't being compared to a 1,200 SF property or a 3,600 SF property. 

Any property compared to the one to be purchased or sold - should be largely similar: in size, in age, in schools, in amenities such as bath rooms, bedrooms and even lot sizes.  

To find out more about selling your home, click here

Knowing the numbers - helps. Numbers helps clients all over Central Ohio. Some  agents will dwell on the last few sales and that's part of what I want my home sellers to see. Understand.

Become smarter. Be more informed. Gain factual knowledge of the market in your neighborhood.

It's my belief that if you can look at the past 6 months of sales, and the last year's sales and even the previous two or three years of sales. You have a lot more data and history. In most cases I will generate 50-200 prior sales over the past 1-3 years. These are similar sales. Similar in size. Generally the same school district. It's a smaller version of using Big Data. Will you feel more confident basing your property value on 5 sales or 50 sales? So it's a part of the process of knowing the numbers. 

More numbers. More data. Better analysis with the goal of getting the highest, best value.