When should I consider coming down on condo asking price?

We bought a condo. It was in the middle range of 3 others that were selling in that complex. Here is what won me on this condo vs all of the others: 1) It seemed established without looking worn. Rooms were painted actual colors that told me someone once enjoyed living there, not just tried to flip it & did a rush job. That helped make me want to live there. 2) Simple upgrades. Cabinet pulls. snazzy trim in the bathrooms. Anything that looked old in the other condos (gross rolling closet doors, old kitchen lighting) had been replaced. 3) Anything most people would tear down or out had already been done. Some of the condos still had wood paneling or old carpet. Even though they didn't replace these with top-of-the-line stuff, it had been swapped out to something I could live with. 4) It was empty but with minimal staging. There was a made bed in the bedroom. Towels on the towel bar. The place smelled clean vs some of the other empty condos that smelled stale & moldy. 5) They worked with us, as first time home buyers. They paid our closing costs. Anything that turned up on the inspection was taken care of immediately. Again, I felt like I was buying this from a great couple who had lived there, not just bought it, set foot in it once, had some cheap work done to it, and left.

Have you seen the other condos? You or your realtor should if you haven't yet. Look for appliances, paint, floors, trims, windows...anything that looks upgraded or newer than yours. Keep a checklist if you can. As well, look at how the other condos are staged; do they look lived in (i.e., some clutter around), are they empty or are they featuring new, modern furniture? It would be wise to better understand how your condo stacks up now before lowering the price or making any adjustments to your plan. If you drop the price and the other apartments are older and in worse condition, you may lose money for no good reason. A couple of hours scouting competition may be lucrative in the long run.

It takes on average 5+ months to sell a place. You jumped the gun a bit on a January listing -- it is just not getting into the selling/buying season. The days are getting sunny and the trees are blooming! I notice that savvy realtors will lower the price by $100 so it then puts the property at the top of Zillow searches for "recently lowered." You may increase your traffic that way. My vote is to chill out. Just make sure you house is aired out, spotless carpets, no rugs, no excess furniture, NO pictures of family/pets/vacations/etc -- NONE, no hanging diplomas on the wall, bake cookies the morning before showings and leave them out...

Have you tried painting your walls? If you paint your kitchen an orange or red, the bathroom a warm blue/green, the living room yellow, etc...that can REALLY help. You want the viewers to walk inside your home and instantly fall in love. A new washer/dryer or beautiful stove can help sweeten the deal. The key is to make the buyer picture themselves in the house/condo, and appliances can help. Small upgrades all throughout will cost less but make a huge impact. For example, you could put beautiful tiles in the kitchen or change the living room to hardwood. Other options are adding some moldings or updating your light fixtures/fans.

On the one hand, you want to move the unit. On the other hand, you don't want to get into a price competition war with the other units. I don't know (legally) whether you can all get together and collude on pricing, but I suspect it wouldn't be enforceable anyway, so the better way might be to focus on things other than price. Is your unit less noisy? A preferable distance from the elevator? Upgraded? Be "open and honest" with the people who come see you: point out the things that make your unit "better" than the cheaper ones ("I've priced the unit above [the cheaper ones] because mine isn't adjacent to the main street"), and for those more expensive, be honest too ("I don't know why they're charging $11,000 more, although I've heard the balconies are slightly bigger.") In short, present your option as a fairly priced balance between the worst units and the top-of-the-line units.

A friend who was having trouble selling his unit raised his price after months on the market (to the shock of his agent). It sold quickly. I guess the psychology is that people will figure there's a reason you are selling it for more and they want the best (of what they can afford). Oh, yes! This reminds me of a condo I considered buying in Chicago in the early 2000s; it was $110,000, and while taking the tour, the woman who was selling units in the building (it was a building her husband and her were turning into condos) volunteered (in response to my comment about it seeming a bit low-priced) that they'd listed originally for $85,000, but nobody came to see them, so they had just bumped the price to $110,000 and people (like me) started showing up. So there's that.

If your finances (and the condo regulations) allow, you could expand the pool of potential buyers by being open to a rent-to-own deal or holding paper on a portion of the debt. If it's weird for five of the units to be on the market simultaneously, perhaps you should rent it for awhile and then sell when there's less competition.

Thank you all for your interesting perspectives and things to consider. Replies to some of your comments, in case anyone re-visits the post: @parrot_person - i did take many of my own pix to give to the realtor and she used some of her own. I happened to get real nice staged patio shots last summer so i could show what it looks like when all is green and bloomed. So, i was very happy that I thought to do that last summer. I have put a lot of elbow grease into it, but i will take another look around to see what details I might be overlooking. and yes, making sure it smells clean and fresh as soon as someone walks in IS a priority! The one time it showed when I was in town, I considered the cookie baking, but ran out of time. (BTW, I highly recommend the air wick plug-ins, the clean waters scent (or some name like that). Sorry, smalls, the "Live Laugh Love" metal hanging stays! - just kidding - although that did make me laugh.

It takes on average 5+ months to sell a place. Citation, please. I'd be very surprised if condos at that price are taking 5+ months to sell. Usually the lower-end stuff sells faster. Is your stat current? From the Raleigh area in particular? This neighborhood? Condos in this price range? It also often takes a while to get from initial offer to closing, and that is factored into those average DOM calculations. So, poster, if you haven't even had an *offer* yet, in two months, it is absolutely time to lower your price. I researched the living hell out of how to best sell a house in the buyeriest buyer's market imaginable (in 2009 in suburban MD), and I did it successfully. Like you, I had multiple competing listings that were very similar to mine. Why did mine sell first, and for more money than most? 1. My price was reasonable. Some others were not, but they ended up selling for *less* because by the time they finally lowered their price, their high DOM already made them suspect (people assume there's something wrong with a place that has been on the market for many months), and all of the local real estate agents had already written off bothering showing any of their clients the listing. Some listings didn't sell at all, because they were so tainted from their high DOMs, resulting from the owners' refusal to lower their prices when their homes didn't sell for what they wanted them to. 2. I put a tremendous amount of elbow grease into spiffying up my already-spiffy home. Other people stopped at shampooing the carpets; I stretched mine. Other people allowed their walls to be a bit grimy; I went over every inch of mine with bright lights and magic erased or painted over every spot I found. Other people stopped at mowing the lawn; I put in new gorgeous blooming bushes. I stained my front yard fence while one other listing's was clearly worn and unappealing. You don't necessarily need to put a lot of $ into fixing up your house, just a lot of effort, and don't let yourself slide on little details. 3. I did not allow my realtor to put the shitty, shitty digital camera pictures she took on any real estate web sites. I took my own pictures, with a better camera, and with much better lighting and more professional angles. They made my home look worlds more appealing. If your realtor can't take a decent picture, s/he should really be hiring someone to do so. Have you looked at the pictures of your home that appear in flyers and on the web? Do they really represent your home as well as it should be represented? Salamandrous' anecdote is charming, but it certainly does not represent the norm.