They Wanted $950K. It Sold for $1.117 Million.

By Bob Sokoler

Bob Sokoler is a 32-year Louisville resident and a highly accomplished real estate professional with more than 21 years of industry experience.

My clients told me they wanted to sell their home for $950,000. I told them I thought that number was too low. Not too high, too low. A few days later, that same home sold for over $1.1 million. Here’s how the right price, and the right strategy, put nearly $170,000 more in their pocket.

Let me tell you about these clients. I first met them a couple of years ago in Norton Commons. They were planning a move to San Diego, and we were ready to list their home when the house they were buying out there was sold out from under them, so the whole plan went on hold. Here’s something worth noticing: I didn’t disappear. I stayed in touch and checked in every few months, because I knew their moment would come. Late last year, it did. They called on a Friday with a new San Diego home lined up and ready to go. I was at their house Saturday morning shooting photos and handling paperwork, and we were live on the market that same Saturday night. The most important conversation, though, happened before any of that, when we sat down to talk about price.

The pricing conversation is the heart of this story. My clients wanted to get $950,000 for the home. I told them I’d done my research, and since I live right here in the area myself, I know it well, and I believed we could get more, at least a million. They were surprised. Understand how unusual that is: most of the time you hear about agents talking sellers down and urging them to be realistic. This was the opposite. I was telling them their own number sat well below what this specific home, in this specific neighborhood, was genuinely worth. We listed at a million.

The market agreed, and quickly. We went live Saturday night, and by Sunday we had around twenty showings. By Monday, six offers were on the table. One of those offers used a tool called an escalation clause, and it’s worth understanding. That buyer offered a million dollars, but their offer specified that they would automatically go $7,000 over any competing offer, up to a maximum of $1,120,000. Rather than guessing what others might bid, their offer climbs on its own to stay on top, but only up to the ceiling they set. That buyer’s offer was also all cash, which makes for a stronger, cleaner transaction. That kind of competition is exactly what happens when a home is priced right and buyers get excited.

Where it landed changed their next chapter. The home sold for $1,117,000. Remember, my clients first wanted $950,000, so that’s nearly $170,000 more than the number they walked in with, and it mattered in a real way. They were able to put a much larger down payment on their new San Diego home, easing their monthly payments for years to come. It wasn’t perfectly smooth, since there’s almost always a bump: an issue surfaced during the inspection, and I negotiated it to minimize what my sellers had to pay out of pocket to resolve it. We closed in about three weeks. Today they’re in San Diego, living their life and loving it. That’s what the right pricing and the right guidance add up to, not just a sold sign, but a genuinely better next chapter.

Here’s what I want you to take from this. The price you hope for and the price your home can actually command are not always the same number, and sometimes the right agent sees more value in your home than you do. Getting that number right, and then having the strategy to capture it when offers arrive, is the difference between a good sale and a life-changing one.

If you’re even thinking about selling in the Louisville area, let’s have that pricing conversation before you settle on a number. Call or text me at (502) 376-5483, email me at Bob@WeSellLouisville.com, or visit weselllouisville.com.

It might be a very pleasant surprise.