“I felt it was my time to move, and I just felt it was time for me to leave the house,” she says. She was looking to move to Cedar Crest, an Erickson retirement community in nearby Pompton Plains, so she enlisted the help of Margaret Semezko, a personal moving consultant with Erickson Realty &  Moving  Services. Semezko not only advised Gwenn to stage her house to make it more appealing to buyers, but she also connected her with a new Realtor who immediately suggested that Gwenn adjust the price of her house to align with the current market trends.

The Realtor suggested she adjust the price just a small percentage lower than comparable houses in the neighborhood. Though Gwenn was at first resistant, a small tweak made all the difference in the end.

“[Sellers] are remembering stories of friends and family members who, over the last two or three years, have sold their houses and made substantially higher sale prices, and they’re reluctant to give that up,” Moore says. They have to remember that, to the buyer, the house “is a commodity and (the seller) always has to deal with supply and demand.” Semezko agrees with that sentiment, adding, “A good real estate agent keeps her eye on the market daily and knows when to drop and how far to drop the price on the home to stay competitive. That is what this agent did. Even with staging the home and making some repairs it still did not sell until the home was priced correctly.” After starting a new contract with a lower initial price, the house had a bid after only two  weeks.

Right price may attract multiple bids
In a number of cases, says Moore, setting the home price below others in the area will result in a bidding war, and the house ends up selling for more than comparable properties in the surrounding area.

“When you go to buy something, if you think other people want it, psychologically it makes you think others want it more,” she says. “You feel that if you think it’s worth it and the other people (bidding) think it’s worth it, then the house is worth it.”

Gwenn didn’t get a bidding war for her house, but just the fact that she was able to sell her house after it was on the market for so long was a load off her mind. “I think it’s time for me to enjoy my life,” says Gwenn. “I had a big house  that I could ’t take care of anymore. And if (other people) are in the same situation, I’d advise them to move. It’s for the best.”