Thinking Ahead - One Strategy

Based on recent information regarding House #1, I believe it may - (and I stress may) - be sitting a while at the $140,000 price. But as several people here said, it is better to start high and go low than it is to do the opposite. I may be premature in my thought process, but I'm thinking if the house sits for 2-3 weeks without any serious buyers, I could do the following ...

1. Drop the price to around $138,000. I know this isn't a huge difference, but it could do two things: (1) be flagged in the MLS as a price drop (or, at least, a price change), and (2) bring the price down to the next lower tier range ($130,000-$139,999).

2. Add a $1,000 buyer's agent incentive. Nothing like the lure of more money to get people looking more at your property. Of course, it's the buyer's agent that will get the money and not the buyer themselves, but it may draw out more customers. The con is the fact it lowers my net gain by $1,000.

3. Add a $1,000 buyer's cost incentive. Coupled with #2, this will act on the buyer's interest as well as the buyer's agent's interest. It may be the pot sweetener that gets the property sold. Again, though, it drops the net gain by $1,000.

In reality, this will drop my net gain so that I'm getting back $4,000 less than my current list price. This is only a strategy I'm looking at now. It may not happen at all, or may happen with some mutations. Shoot, for all I know I'll get a tenant/buyer in instead just a buyer. :-)