The 5 Most Important Steps To Sell Your Big Bear Cabin
This write-up will cover the 0-$800,000 Real Estate Market in Big Bear. My next write-up will cover the $800,000 and up Luxury Market.
At the end of this write up you will see the 5 most important steps that I have come up with to sell your cabin and how they work in today’s Big Bear Real Estate market. These 5 steps are part of our 10-step program, “10 Steps to SOLD”.
When talking to clients and Real Estate agents they often ask me why I go through so much trouble to look at graphs and make charts to analyze the Big Bear Real Estate market. The answer is to try and be the best Big Bear Real Estate Agent possible for my clients and readers. My goal is twofold, first to keep my readers informed on the Big Bear Real Estate Market. Second, to get my clients’ property sold, and to get them the most money possible given the current market. Those charts and graphs show me what the current market challenges are that I need to work through to help my clients obtain their goal in buying or selling a Big Bear cabin right now.
When looking at the data to define the current market, some markets are obvious. They are going down or maybe even crashing. Or they are going up or over heated. These are easy to adjust marketing and pricing to get a property sold. It’s the steady down markets like what we are currently experiencing, that are the hardest to sell a property. And very hard to try and get the highest price possible. So, what do I do that is different that makes me successful in our current “steady down” market?
First, use charts and graphs to define the current market to make sure we are still in the same market that we have been experiencing for the last 2-3 months. As an example, let’s look at two graphs to define our current market. The first graph below lets us know that prices have stabilized in the last 7 months. There are months with higher monthly averages and some with lower monthly averages but overall, there isn’t a constant trend up or down. We basically have an average of $448,000. Which is $114,000 lower than 7 months a year ago. Next let’s look at the second graph sales vs listings. The last 7 months we have 20% of listings that are available sell in a month. This is down 28% from 48% of listed cabins selling from the same 7 months a year ago. So here again we have a market that doesn’t have a constant trend up or down but a steady decline in sales compared to a year ago. So, we can define the current market as a down market but steady in price and sales or a steady down market.
Second, I need to define the property’s condition and amenities and compare these to the comparable properties that have recently sold. This is what is commonly known as a CMA or Comparable Market Analysis. There are basically three types of CMA’s. The first type of CMA is the quick computer-generated guesstimate. You can go on Zillow or other Real Estate sites and get this type of CMA. But this estimate is probably going to be between 20 – 50% off. Not what you want. The second type of CMA is where the agent pulls comparable properties that are currently listed and have recently sold. They will give you the average price of all the sale prices and the average price per sq ft and use these to come to a price for you. Here is where I separate myself on a market analysis.
What I do is look at the condition and amenities of my subject property and compare these amenities to each of the comparable properties and give them a value to better define what your property should be listed for. As an example, lot size, lot slope, where the property is located is it a positive or negative, one car vs two car garage and of course property condition inside and outside. Don’t forget the view and the slope of the driveway to get up and down in icy conditions of winter. You get the idea. This will give me a good idea of the maximum price you can get for your property.
Third, go to other graphs that I normally don’t use to see if there are any trends that might affect the sale or price of the property. When I did this recently, I found two graphs that were very interesting. Take a quick look at the third and fourth graph. The third graph shows that in the last 12 months property in the 0-$800,000 price range sells for an average of 99% of list price. And the fourth graph shows us that of the properties that have sold in the last seven months, in the first five months there was a difference between the original list price and the sale price of about $20,000. But in the month of April there was a difference of $90,000 and in May there was a difference of $50,000. Why the difference? Why the new trend? What does it all mean?
To answer those questions let’s put the first 3 steps together and add the last two.
Step 1. Look at the trend in pricing and sales. This tells us that we are in a Steady down market.
Step 2. Go over the condition of the property and what it has to offer. More detailed information to compare to CMA comps.
Step 3. Go over different data to see if there are any new trends. Graphs 3 show’s us that cabins are selling for close to list price so you must lower your price to what your property should sell for to get offers. If your cabin should sell for $625,000 you can’t list for $675,000 and count on coming down in price when an offer comes in. You won’t get offers. You must list the cabin at $629,000 or even $625,000 because that is what it will sell for. Graph 4 shows that people are following this strategy by lowering their price to get offers and have their property sell. This is a new trend where people now understand we are staying in a down market for a while. And that if they want to sell, they have to lower their price to what the property will sell for or not get offers.
Step 4. As your agent we have to maximize your properties exposure to any potential buyers. We have done this by joining not only the Big Bear MLS but also CRMLS. CRMLS covers most of California. And gives us an additional 70,000 Real Estate to expose their buyers to your cabin.
Step 5. Use the power of KellerWilliams marketing program. KellerWilliams has more sales than any other company in the United States, California and of course Big Bear.
If you are thinking of selling your Big Bear cabin and would like to see how our 10 Steps to “Sold” program can work for you, give us a call.
