In today's Wall Street Journal, Rachel Koning Beals hits the nail on the head in examining the home sale business. Although her market is Chicago, a great deal of the article applies to Maui Real Estate. Here are some snippets:

You have to be ruthless in looking at your own house value," said Jon Gollinger, CEO of residential real estate sales and auction consultants Accelerated Marketing Partners, which has headquarters in Boston and Danville, Calif.

Difficult for owners, but utterly necessary.

One of the biggest mistakes that sellers make when determining price is looking only at comparable listings and not necessarily those properties that have actually sold, Gollinger said. Although Internet listings are shortening the time that information gets into the hands of agents and buyers and sellers, there's still a gap of two or three months before closing data is available

A top tier agent can generally get a sense of where properties in escrow were actually priced.

"Brokers put together a 'hot buy' list and that's what you want to be on," said O'Connor. "You've got to be on the radar and it all comes down to price and condition."

This is perhaps the single most important thing for a seller to understand. If local brokers do not believe your property represents an unusual value, they simply will not show your property. The single best measure of how well priced a property is is the number of showings it receives and from how many different agents.

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