The correct way to price your sales/flips in Chicago to get top dollar

[Henry Lazerow]

Just a market tip for Chicago. It's always better to slightly underprice your listings here and then set up a group showing with the goal being multiple offers over ask vs pricing your listing high and having to lower the price later. Buyers think there is something wrong with the place if it's been up more than 2 weeks and you start to get lowballers only. It's human nature people start to think why hasn't this sold and they offer accordingly.

A good example was a 3 unit at 1435 W Wrightwood. Comps put this property around 1.45 million. I wanted to be aggressive though and priced it at $1.39 million and didn't allow anyone to tour until two group time slots on the weekend. What this did is create a bidding war and it sold $1.55 million. $150k over and we had several backup offers.

Did the same thing on another 3 unit at 5849 S Princeton listed it $450k and set up only two group times to tour. We ended up getting over ask at $465k. All while had backup offers waiting, so we would not need to reactivate with a listing that people now wonder whats wrong with if a buyer couldn't perform. You want to do everything you can to never have to reactivate or have a listing sit unsold for more than 2 weeks.

It sounds funny but it's true. It is impossible to underprice a deal in Chicago. As long as you set up a group tour it will get bid to/above market. This is why firms like (not going to name haha) trying to sell all their listings internally are so dangerous for sellers and really only benefits the brokerage trying to collect dual agency fees. You miss out on the full public markets bidding process.