THE ULTIMATE LBI SELLERS GUIDE

A large percentage of home sales in the Long Beach Island real estate market are new construction or tear down opportunities. If you have an older home on Long Beach Island, for example a Cape Cod or single story ranch, there is a possibility the house will be purchased with the intent to build new. To this end, the land value of the property can be determined by looking at recent new construction sales and deducting the cost to build and sell a new home. If you are pricing to sell quickly to a builder, it is important to factor in the profit and overhead a builder will expect. This method can also be used to price newer homes by backtracking the cost of comparable land sales and factoring in the cost to build a new home.

With the exception of new construction, price per square foot is a somewhat challenging method of evaluating homes for sale in the LBI real estate market. Much of this difficulty derives from the wild difference in price from one location to another, the presence or absence of a view, and from the style of one house to another. Price per square foot can be an effective method when looking at new or near new construction as the amenities and condition will be nearly the same. This is especially helpful when pricing out a spec project in the LBI real estate market as it can help to estimate the potential return on an investment opportunity.

The most common method of evaluating a home on Long Beach Island is to look at comparable sales, also known as "comps", and evaluate your house, the subject property, to these homes. A listing agent will evaluate the location, condition, size and the view from each comp and determine the value. As a seller in the LBI real estate market, you should be asking if the listing agent has actually seen the comparable houses since without a fist hand knowledge of the comps, there is no effective way to properly evaluate a comparable sale.

In the age of the Internet information is widely available and buyers are sensitive to the correct pricing of a home. Apart from buyers being able to search online and view home prices of similar homes, there are tools available to help determine the value of a home. A common and well know example is Zillow's "Zestimate" and while this does have many issues with improper valuations on Long Beach Island, it does give buyers a sense of price.

When determining the best listing price, sellers should employ several different methods of valuation as a kind of "cross check" to ensure the proper listing price of a home.