Pricing a Houston Listing When the Market Sits at 5.6 Months of Inventory

A 5.6 month market means buyers have choices. Same square footage, three streets over, similar finishes. Your house has competition you didn't have last year.

Pricing rules changed. The old Houston playbook said list 2 to 3 percent over your target to leave room. That worked when inventory sat at 2 months. It doesn't work now. Overpriced homes in Bridgeland, Elyson, and Cross Creek Ranch are sitting 60 to 90 days, then reducing twice, then closing below where they should have started.

Start with three numbers. Pull the last 90 days of sold comps in your subdivision, the last 30 days of pending contracts, and the current active listings competing with yours. The actives tell you what buyers are seeing. The pendings tell you what buyers are paying. The solds tell you what the appraiser will support.

The trap most sellers fall into. They price off the actives. Don't. Actives are aspirational. Half of them will reduce. Price off the pendings and the recent solds. If pending contracts in your neighborhood are coming in 2 percent below list, build that into your number.

Buyer concessions count as price. A house listed at $475,000 that closes at $475,000 with $10,000 in seller concessions is really a $465,000 sale. Appraisers see this. Future sellers in your subdivision see this. Be honest with yourself about your net.

The first 10 days matter more than they used to. A listing that sits past two weeks in this market reads as damaged goods. Buyers' agents start asking what's wrong with it. Your showings drop. The price you could have gotten in week one is gone.

Three things to do before you go live:

• Professional photography. Phone photos read as low effort, and low effort listings get low offers.
• Pre-listing inspection. Spend $500 and know what's coming. A buyer's inspector will find it anyway.
• Title work pulled early. Old liens and survey issues kill closings, not contracts.

Be ready to act on feedback in week one. If you've had eight showings and no offers, the problem is price. Not the photos. Not the staging. Not the market. Price. Reduce 1.5 to 2 percent and reset the search alerts.

Stage for the buyer you want. First time buyers in 77084 and 77095 want move in ready. Touch up paint, replace dated brass, fix the squeaky garage door. These are $300 problems that turn into $5,000 negotiation items at the inspection table.

Watch what the new construction builders are doing. KB, Lennar, and Perry are offering 5 to 6 percent rate buydowns and closing cost help in Sunterra, Jordan Ranch, and Harvest Green. That's your competition. You don't have to match it, but you do have to acknowledge it in your pricing or your concessions.

Talk to your agent about pricing strategy before you sign the listing. Ask for the comp pull, the absorption rate for your subdivision, and the average days on market for homes that closed in the last 90 days. If those numbers don't show up in the conversation, that's a problem.

Ready to price right? Schedule a seller consultation. I'll bring the comp work and the absorption data for your specific block.