You may have read my Seattle seller tips lists before and all of those things are vital, but the biggest piece of advice I can give you if you are trying to sell your house in the 2009 Seattle real estate market?

 

Do NOT drop your price to your absolute bottom number!!!! 

 

The buyers who are ready, willing, and able in 2009 are good buyers.  They are the only buyers who are qualified and they want to leverage this asset by negotiating. 

 

 I have had sellers digging in their heels lately and one whose agent actually advised them not to counter at all even though they had been on the market for months. (PS - do yourself a favor and get a new agent on that one).   You should almost always counter any qualified offer you get if you have no others.  You should thank them for the offer and counter it respectfully.  To me this is real estate 101 because it was one of the very first lessons my broker at Windermere taught me when I was new.

 

 

 

These buyers are not going to pay full price in most situations so don't price your house so low that you are unable to negotiate.  They will just find the next house with a flexible seller and yours will sit on the market longer until you have to reduce your price even further - maybe less than that "low ball" buyer would have been willing to pay if you had countered them.  There are buyers out there despite what you might be hearing.  You can sell your Seattle home in this market! 

 

 

Some other Seattle selling tips and reading: