VIDEO BLOG
Here’s how you can leverage price per square foot for high-end luxury properties.
How do you leverage price per square foot as an agent to create urgency? To answer that question, I’ll tell you about three high-end luxury properties we recently worked with. For two of these properties, we were able to educate consumers on why the homes were a better deal than they initially thought. For the other, we were able to justify a more reasonable list price with the seller. All three of these properties are located just outside of Chicago.
The first home is an amazing, Tuscan-style home where we even filmed one of our lifestyle videos. It was on the market for a year with its previous agent, who miscalculated its square footage. They probably just went with what the seller said or the tax records indicated, but we re-measured the property and found 2,090 extra square feet than what was reported, which means it was about 16.62% larger than what it was being marketed as.
If you’re not sure about a property’s square footage, don’t rely on the tax records.
Mind you, the asking price was $7.25 million, and there’s never been a sale in Naperville above $5 million so we had our work cut out for us. How do you create urgency when there are no comps in the area? With our new square footage measurement, we were able to decrease the price per square foot for this home by 16.62%, which helps create “value” which helps create urgency in a buyers market.
With the second property, the owner thought the home was larger than it actually was. When we measured it (and shot a 3D virtual tour), we found that the exact square footage was actually a little less than what the owner presumed and closer to what I had figured. This was good because it helped us manage the seller’s expectations. If someone thinks their home is larger than it is, they’ll want more money than what other, smaller homes are listed for. This home’s actual square footage was more in line with other similar properties, which allowed us to price it more reasonably.
The third home is the one we just sold, and it belonged to former MLB professional baseball player David DeJesus. His previous agent listed the home at 6,000 square feet, and it sat on the market for well over a year. When we measured it, we found over 6,713 square feet, which made it 11.88% larger than what it was being marketed at. Again, even though we relisted the home at the exact same price we dropped the price per square foot by 11.88%….which helped create urgency.
Many buyers still look at price per square feet on third-party websites to decide whether a seller is realistic or not. If you’re not sure about a property’s square footage, don’t rely on tax records. Don’t even rely on the builder’s plans. I suggest bringing in a third-party company that specializes in floor plans to get the exact measurement.
As always, if you have questions about this or any real estate topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help you. Remember, keep raising the bar in real estate!
