Fullerton Realtor explains ‘range pricing’ benefits, disadvantages

If you’ve toured any open houses lately, perhaps you’ve noticed some of the houses for sale list a price range as opposed to a firm number. This is a fairly common practice in the North Orange County real estate market.

Sometimes Realtors and real estate agents will “range” their listings by as much as $100,000 depending on the property’s price point.

Here at Redux Realtors we’ve found that for home sellers there are many advantages to range pricing, particularly when a home’s value falls in the high $500,000 to low $600,000 range. Primarily, range listing ensures your property will receive more online exposure than it would if the property was listed at a firm number.

For example, let’s say we had a listing with a price point around $629,000. If someone were to do an online search for real estate and set a filter for properties up to $600,000, then our listing firmly priced at $629,000 would not appear in the search results. On the other hand, if we give that listing a price range of $599,000 to $629,000, the property will appear in that real estate search for homes up to $600,000.

Increased web exposure for your property is not the only advantage a range pricing strategy offers. This pricing strategy often helps home sellers feel more comfortable with the process of assessing their home’s value and placing it on the market. The higher end of the range might represent what the seller hopes to sell for while the lower end of the range might be more in line with fair market value.

Listing a home at a price range also opens a door for home sellers to receive multiple offers at varying price points, which brings us to one possible disadvantage to the range pricing strategy. Some potential homebuyers might see the price range and attempt to low ball their offer.

While we certainly wouldn’t discourage any would-be buyer from submitting an offer, even if it’s on the lower end of the price range, we always tell homebuyers that if the market demands a higher price, this fact will come to light and they may lose out on a prime property by not submitting a more competitive offer. A seller may also choose to counter a homebuyer’s low ball offer to a higher number.

We used a range pricing strategy in our latest Realtor Redux project in Fullerton, with fantastic results. Market comparables indicated to us that the home was worth about $700,000, but our sellers felt the home might have been worth a bit more. We chose to list the house for a price range of $699,000 to $719,000 and within days the house was sold at $705,000. The sellers felt they received a fair price, and we squeezed out more proceeds from the sale. A win-win!

Range pricing is a relatively common practice in North Orange County and can be an effective strategy for maximizing your return from a home sale. We’ve found that range pricing increases online exposure for each property we list. Home sellers feel comfortable with range pricing because it helps to reconcile what one might hope to get from a home sale versus what might be considered fair market value, and it opens a door to multiple offers. While some potential homebuyers might submit low-ball offers, ultimately the market will dictate the appropriate sale price.

At Redux Realtors we’ve helped countless homeowners prep their homes for the market and list them using effective marketing strategies like range pricing. Feel free to contact us if you’re interested in learning how we can help you sell your home for top dollar.