🚨 Episode 11: Your Home Is Not Worth What You Think It’s Worth

We know… that’s not what you want to hear.

But if you’re thinking about selling your home, pricing it based on what you hope it’s worth (or what Zillow says) could cost you time, money, and serious buyer interest.

In this episode of NOBODY LISTENS TO LIZ, we’re talking about:

🏡 What actually determines your home’s value

📉 Why overpricing backfires (every time)

📊 How the current market is impacting home prices in KY & OH

💡 What smart sellers do differently

Because the goal isn’t to test the market…

It’s to sell your home strategically.

🎧 Listen now or check us out on our YouTube page!

#HomeSellingTips #RealEstateAdvice #KentuckyRealtor #CincinnatiRealEstate #LouisvilleRealEstate #NobodyListensToLiz #HomeValue #SellYourHome

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Email us your questions or comments at: NobodyListensToLiz@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Yep, okay. Hi, welcome to Nobody Listens to Liz, where we discuss real estate in Kentucky and Ohio. I'm Leah Frederick. I'm Liz Eric Dykes, and I'm Sierra Palouso. And we're not listening to her. Actually, we are. This is why we're here. We're gonna be a nice relaxed chit-chat. I wish that you weren't because I just stick my. She hates this. She hates this. We made her do this, actually. This whole uh podcast started from going to a conference.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

And uh what up, Jared James?

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Yeah, call out to Jared James, advance. Where you forced me into this? We forced her. Actually, we just kept, you know, she kept saying, Well, nobody listens to me.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

And it's so true. Yeah. Like I tell everybody this great stuff, and they don't listen or like take heed to the advice, and then someone else says it, and they're like, Oh my gosh, that's the best thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

What were you saying?

unknown 1:12

See?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Oh god, I work here. Oh, you love us. Do you remember our number for Walmart? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

We have that posted in our conference room. When we have a bad day, and bad days do happen in real estate. Uh, we have that jokingly up there if we want another job. Is it a joke? Is it a joke? Time will tell. So today we are talking about your home is not worth what you want it to be worth. I think this is very timely considering we're coming out of seller's market and moving into the buyer's market.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Sellers, we're gonna give some tough love to you today. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Um, about emphasis on the love. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

I thought you were saying emphasis on the top.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

That too. That's more my personality, is the tough. It is. It is so.

SPEAKER_04 2:05

Um, but yeah, no, I think that it is worth uh sellers seem to be more emotionally attached to these pricing fantasies because, you know, hey, first of all, they think they know what comparables would actually match their house.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

A 2022 comparable is not uh comparable to a 2025 sale. There we go.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Okay, you didn't finish that concept, you just gave me one.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Well, these are not COVID prices. These are not for sure. In 2025, these are not COVID prices. Yeah, that was wild.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Oh, was it? I wasn't here for because I wasn't a realtor back then.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Although we might have a new COVID with those monkeys that escaped, but that's a different story. I've got to start watching the news. You guys don't know about that? No. Okay, no, never mind. What you can't leave us dangling about that. Okay, there was like a semi-air truck crash in Mississippi, I think. Okay. And it was carrying five monkeys and they all escaped. They were carrying COVID, um, herpes, and hepatitis B. Okay. And they escaped into the wilderness of Mississippi. W who told you about this? The news, which What kind of news? I am surprised. No. I'm surprised you've never heard of this. We will link the comment to the news article. You're gonna have to have to so how do I'm sorry, I have to pursue this line of questioning.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

What kind of monkeys are these and why were they why did they give them photos? And how do we think they're gonna be transmitting these things? I don't know that at all. So if a monkey taps on your door, don't answer. And he's contagious.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So are you frying?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

I'm just gonna joke about this. Like that has to be a joke. Like five monkeys jumping on the bed.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

You know what? We got Google in our phones, in our lap right here.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

You're gonna love to sell that to me. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

All right, so yes, we may, we have gotten beware of monkeys knocking on your front door. Escaped monkeys in Mississippi comes right up. Mississippi mom says she shot and killed a large monkey to protect her children. Now there's four. Now there's four monkeys jumping on the bed. I know what's like what's under one jump. Five little monkeys jumping on the bed.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

One fell off and got shot by a protective mother. Wonder how many are left.

unknown 4:38

Oh my god. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

This should get great ratings, actually. This one entirely. Truly, we did not drink our lunch today. Um, okay, so let's bring it back around. I'm sorry, I was distracted by the monkeys. Um so the sellers who are emotionally attached to their pricing fantasy as far as the prices. Sellers are emotionally attached to their homes. They are. It is, it is true. It is true. So um do they think it's worth more than it is? Always. Always insane.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah. So your house.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

My house is worth a million dollars, obviously. For sure. I mean, okay, full disclosure. I'm getting ready to sell my parents' house. And there's a lot of discussion regarding Is it great to work with family? It's so great. Discussion's a nice word. Discussion. Um, where I took in a sense, you know, the C. Well, eventually I did, but I went and I got an appraisal first because the house is very unique. My father was an architect and an admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright. It has a flat roof.

unknown 5:48

Oh, I don't ever get a flat roof.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Those are so bad. It looks like a tree house.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

It is, it is, yeah. And it's 21 acres. It's beautiful, right? Super cool. Really cool. Um, not many comparables out there for this property. No comparables. There are no comparables. But I went and got a licensed appraiser to come out and give me an idea of what it would, market value would be on it, because that's what we do to prepare our house for sale. And, you know, uh, they came up with a number. My mother immediately was like, No, no, no, no, we should price it $150,000 more than that. Because then the appraisal. Then the appraisal.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

You can always be talked down.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

You can't go back up. You would think so, yes. Uh, there's a whole other story with that. Um, but um, but yeah, but she was like, Oh, well, maybe we attract somebody from California. No, we're we're not gonna play that game kind of thing. So, yeah, people do have this idea that um their house is worth a lot more than it is. We all agree that it has, you know, you've you've done things like uh put new countertops in or improve or replace the roof. Oh, that's one of my favorites. Yes, yeah, you go, Liz. Talk about that one.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Yeah, because you've got a new HVAC, because you've got a new roof, because you've got new gutters, those are not upgrades, those are not worth extra money, those are called maintenance house. Maintenance. So weirdly enough, you have to take care of the house that you're living in if you want to sell it. And that's not the buyer's problem. Cleanliness is next to godliness in this. The cleaner your house is and the better it smells, the better we can do our job. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

That's also those those fake Febreze smells that cover up odor, we can tell.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

So we can tell. Please stop. Yes, please stop. I do they make they set off my allergies. So so anyway, um, yeah, is it overpriced? Uh, emotional pricing doesn't sell homes, market pricing does. Um, my favorite thing is what I've been hearing is like, do you want me to list your home or do you want me to sell your home? Right. Right?

SPEAKER_03 8:05

There's a difference. Yes. And we want to get you the most money that we can. Absolutely. Like when I'm talking to sellers, one of the things I am very adamant about is I want to get you the most money from your for your home. Like, that's my goal. That is my job. But you're always gonna think your house is worth more than the market says it is. Yes. So if we want to try it a little bit high for the first two weeks, we will know if the market is gonna bear that price that you already have in your head. And I'm going to do my same marketing I do for every house and try to get that sold for you at that price. That is my job. Yep. Um, but you've got to be realistic and come down to what the market says. Yes, if it doesn't sell in those first two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

Yep. And I think that being honest and brutally so sometimes, you know, I always uh the idea of real estate math, you know. Uh I've had clients say, well, I just put a $30,000 roof, and so we should tack that on to this appraiser cost. Yeah, because it didn't need a roof. It didn't need a roof, right? I'm like most houses don't have roofs.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

I should have a facetious alert, facetious sarcasm, sarcasm.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Didn't need a roof. I really like it when the house doesn't have windows, just the breeze, the constant fresh airflow. Yes. Open concept.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

But there is there's the emotional bias. Oh, well, we have so many memories. Here's a great place to raise our kids. Um, you know, my favorite, but my neighbors got X amount of dollars, you know, a year and a half ago. That's a totally different market. That was the COVID market. Yes, totally different market, right? Um, I mean, we saw in this area, um, Northern Kentucky area, uh big change between March of this year and I'd say July, where we flipped markets and everything just began sitting. Um because people, oh, the prices are too high.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I would say that's true in southern parts of southern. Southern Ohio too.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um the upgrade delusion. I love the uh but we put $12,000 in in landscaping. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, well, you should clap you should have done that when you moved in.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Yeah, so you could have it. And you could have enjoyed it. Exactly. You could have enjoyed it yourself. My favorite of those estimates.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Zillow's estimates.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Those are great. What is the story that 100% accurate?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, all the time. Never an issue? Never. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 10:44

There is a story going around that the owner of Zilla or whatever actually tried to sell his house based on the Zilla estimate. Yeah, it's the children. I heard that. Yeah. And it was so outrageously. It was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong. Yeah. So yeah, Facebook groups, uh, your cousin Chad who knows real estate. Um, you know, I mean, I've gotten down saying, listen, I'm not an appraiser. I know one who is, and I can recommend them to come and appraise your house because that's a really good thing to do. Uh, it's worth the money because you know they are professionally trained in this. Yeah, we can pull, you know, comps or comparables. Yeah. But, you know, they know, like, okay, this granite countertop, how much value does it add? Um, I was I was told that by appraiser, like, you know, they actually can detract value, actually. So uh so the reality of today's buyers. Wait, what? They can detract value from granite countertops? Yeah, apparently. What do you mean? Because they're like 1980s kind of thing, I guess. I don't know. I'm not allowed to. Yeah, 1990s. I don't know. It feels like yesterday. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

What are we putting in houses now?

SPEAKER_04 11:51

I have butcher block. Yeah, I've got butcher block. What do you got?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

I'd rather have granite than butcher block. So at my house I had granite, and now the house I'm in we just bought is quartz. Which people, a lot of people love. I hate it. I would rather have granite than quartz because you can't cut it very temperamental. And you have to like use these hot things. No, really. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah. It's easy, it's easy to stain. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nope.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Okay. I'll take my granite. I didn't mean all granite. Okay, we won't get a granite sponsorship, that's for damn sure.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Honestly, there's a place right there across the street.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

There is one, actually. So uh, so I'll kiss by the granite sponsorship, but I'm just saying that, and it may have been it may have been quartz. I honestly don't know. Um, because I'm not into countertops, to be honest. Uh, I got butcher block, it's wood, it's fine, it's great. Yeah, okay, totally circling back. The reality of today's buyer. Okay, the reality of today's buyer. Buyers are not emotionally invested in your home. No, they're not involved.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

They've never lived there. You should take down your family photos so that they can see themselves living there, not you. Because the more it feels like your home, yes, the less it's gonna feel like a home.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

They need to imagine the house as their home, and they can't do that when you're staring at them. Yeah, literally, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

And with all your trinkets. Oh, the tchotchke. The tchotchki.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

And your dog in the crate or your cat that's running around, they can't, they don't picture that focus. Nope.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

Yep. So also I think you know, these buyers, they're looking at different houses and they're thinking financially, you know, what am I getting for this amount?

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Um, you know, it's funny to me that right now, like buyers are really in the past few years, started looking for a home office thanks to COVID. That's a big important thing for them. So if you're staging a house, make sure you put an office in it. Um, and a yard for their dogs, because people are dog crazy these days and want to really take care of their dogs, which is great. But they want a yard for their dogs. Yappy little dogs, yappy, yappy dogs. You guys all have dogs, so I'm just I don't even like my dog. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I'm not a huge fan of my dog right now.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Not a fan of my dog.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

They keep looking at me because I've got the yappy dog.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Um, and also Wi-Fi connection, how fast your Wi-Fi is. That's been a huge thing.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

And pretty we serve rural areas as well, and that that's very important.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Because a lot of people work from home or they do the gaming stuff, or maybe they do podcast, or you know, I will say I don't get internet where I live, so we have to use Starlink, and it is five star, love it. Really? Maybe expensive, but yeah, worth it.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

We use Starlink on the house boat, and so far I like it. I don't like playing my Alexa on it because it eats a lot of data. You have the mobile one then.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yes, we have the home one. Oh, there's different ones. Oh, yeah, interesting. We have unlimited at home. Who knew? Who knew?

SPEAKER_04 15:13

Alright, so what do buyers comp really care about when it comes to a home? Getting the best deal. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Value yard for their dogs, office, yeah, condition, condition of the home and price. Oh, the fact that they can move right in. Yeah, but I I am so cheap. Like, all I want to do is buy houses and buildings and stuff that need work that I know I can make money on. Right. Nobody wants to build a big thing. That's a very unique buyer. But it used to be like every buyer, especially when I first started, everybody wanted a deal. Yeah. Everybody wanted a bank bill. Well, everybody wants to be a big thing. I think the market goes through flips.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

It's cyclical. And like right now, I think buyers, because for the past maybe five-ish years, we've had uh a large increase in prices and interest rates. So now I feel like buyers have taken, finally taken the time to slow down. And for how much they're paying for a house, they want it to check the boxes.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Right. There seems to be a huge gulf between the seller's expectations and the buyer's expectations. Um so Glenda the guru actually talked about that. She's another podcaster, really great. We're talking about like we got to bring them together. Yeah. How difficult that yeah is.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

It's gonna be a good and a market shift. Yeah, I feel like that's that's the problem.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

That's what you really see.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yep, yep. So it's not like we're in a bad market, it's just that houses are staying on the market longer than a week or a weekend. And there's a lot of real estate agents that have only been in the game a couple years, and that's all they've seen. They they don't know that houses have not set on the market. Who knew?

SPEAKER_04 17:04

There was a discussion about how long we've all been in real estate. Two and a half years. Uh, math. Oh god. Uh that would be your answer.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Eight years. 12, 12, 13, 13, 13 years.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

Ten years is eight. Eight.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Nice range there. So so yes, value, condition, and price. Uh, not your attachment to it, definitely. Um, you know, you might be selling the the family home, and you know, you think of all the great memories and stuff like that, and they're worth more to you than they are to a new buyer. That's right. They want something that's not gonna need a new roof next year.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

And that is tough love.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Yeah. That is, that is.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Um yeah, they want to walk right in with their stuff and their toothbrush and move in as if there's a new building.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

They want to paint the walls and rip out the carpet and change your family home. They do. Yeah, they they want to change it.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Oh, absolutely. So overpriced homes help other homes sell faster. That's an interesting statement, but it's true. I think. What is it? Overpriced homes help other homes sell faster. So that's an interesting concept kind of thing. Um, yeah, they can because people are comparing everything. They want they want to live in a specific area.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

But and if they're on a time crunch, they don't want to wait for you to come to your census, they want to buy the house right now.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Yeah, oh, can I live with this house? House A has this, house B does this, house A, though, is $20,000 cheaper.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Yeah, so it looks like a deal compared to an overpriced house. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 18:41

So that's where your comparison and that's they're just looking on the apps and just comparing and contrasting, and then agents taking them around. So yeah, you know. Um, cost of overpricing in real terms. Yeah, day one is everything. Stale listings lose leverage. Yeah. So do you well? Here's a fun question because I actually just had this discussion. Um, house has been sitting, uh, they finally came down at price, uh, a good price range, but now the market has slowed. We're seasonally changing. Um, would you advise your clients to take it off the market?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Depends on their situation. Yeah, it depends. And um if we did, it would be to be less at a lower price.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

And maybe do some work, have some work done. Yeah, some changes.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Yeah. So yeah, I mean, there's there's different ways you can be creative about it. Is it 30 days in Ohio as well? That it can actually you take it off the market and then 30 days you come back and it's like a brand new listing. So I I mean I've had clients do that where they decide to take it off the market in the winter.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

But that extra month is the cost of overpricing your house for sure.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

It is. It is definitely so and the market.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

I was gonna add this earlier is that if you list your house at because you want to start higher, uh, and then you don't get any showings, and your agent wants to reduce the price, and you say, Well, we haven't had any showings, we don't know the feedback yet. The absence of showings is the market type of yeah, that's that's your feedback.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

That's your feedback right there. Yeah, yep. So uh yeah, let's try it high and drop later is not a strategy. And we've all we've all had those. And it is a strategy. It is a strategy, it's not necessarily one recommended kind of thing. So um, yeah, seller listed too high, sat for 30 days, and sold below what they could have gotten originally if they would have priced it. If they priced it rightly. Exactly. So um, how to price like a pro, even if you are sentimental. Um, market comps, use market comps, not memories. Right. Listen to data, not hope. Again, that tough love. It's important as tough conversations. Uh the 10-day test, if you're not getting showings or offers, it's time the market is speaking, the market speaks to you. And what you want and what it's worth maybe not the same thing. Not the same thing. Exactly. So um, but again, you can strategize with your agent. Um hopefully in a smart way to get the job done and get the house sold. So um yeah, your house deserves attention, not a price tag that turns buyers off. Liz has a smart seller pricing worksheet. Oh, yeah. Are we gonna share that with them? Yeah, so DM the word price uh and we'll send them to you. So and they can help uh walk sellers through their true market value. So again, don't look at zestamine. Um, I actually have a link to mine that says what's your house worth your home worth um at the bottom of all my emails and stuff. And you click on That and takes in and it'll give you a range. It won't give you it shouldn't give you an exact cost. I think it gives a couple different things.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

That's really the difference in us and appraisers, right? When we're doing this for people, like we are not trained appraisers, we are trained realtors. So we can grab the comps and give them a range, um, especially without seeing the house first. Like the appraiser gets to go comb through the house. A lot of times when people are asking us for price opinions on their house, we've never even seen it. So first we need to see the house, and second, we're gonna give you a range because the market changes, changes all the time, and the amount of upgrades you have might be different. Update maintenance. Yes. Upgrades. If you have some great upgrades, it might be worth more. If you have more land, if you have a great lot, if how depending on your location, you know, all that factors into your pricing. So we'll give you a range, but um, an appraiser can give you it a true value.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

And I will say, like, maintenance items aren't gonna necessarily affect your value, but to a buyer, it could affect your saleability.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

Like it affects your value too, because a house is worth more if it does have everything in top shape.

SPEAKER_04 23:16

Yeah. Your earrings are hitting the microphone.

unknown 23:19

That's not good.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

Hopefully, this entire episode is not scrapped because her earring is hitting the microwave. Those dangly earrings. Should have had that talk. Sorry, Sierra, I can't look at you anymore. No, I just noticed now. You place the microphone in a different place and then place it down farther. Then it won't, your hair won't hit it.

SPEAKER_03 23:42

And there you go. You know, I'm only doing this because you made me. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

And you're doing great. You're doing great.

unknown 23:52

All right.

SPEAKER_04 23:56

You're really pretty. Smart too. So yeah, remember the overpricing, bad strategy. Always. Um, you know, talk to professionals, bring them in. Um, they're gonna tell you stuff you may not want to hear. And you need to be able to accept it. Because again, do you want to list your house or do you want to sell it? Right. And we want to sell it for you. We want to sell it. So if for the most money. For the most money, yeah. So if you want Liz's smart seller pricing, pricing, pricing, pricing worksheet. I am at a heart. Do you need to try British again? I can articulate better when I speak with a British accent. Okay. So you want Liz's smart seller pricing worksheet. DM the word price. Subtlety. She's the crew. We'll send it to you. I am. I'm entertaining them.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

She could just do this without us.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

I know. I could.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

In all of her different voices. Enjoy them.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

That could be really actually funny. You could be, uh, guys, we're gonna wrap it up because I need a break from these two smart asses. Um, you know, nobody listens to Liz anyway. But I'm Leah Frederick. I'm Liz Eric Dykes, and I'm Sierra Peluso. And this is another episode that you've been listening to of Nobody Listens to Liz. We'll see you guys next time. Bye.