For some South Lake Tahoe owners it’s easy, for others it’s tantamount to exorcism.

Taking both emotion and ego out of the sale of a house is the difference between a quick sale for more money, or a long drawn out sale that gets less.

We all have a tendency to become attached to things that are ours, and particularly so for a place of family experiences and fond memories.

So it’s most understandable that a homeowner most often thinks that their home is worth more than a prospective buyer does.

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All of us place more value on things that are important to us. Emotion leads us there. As it relates to a house however, our emotions are just that, ours. And though of utmost importance to us, our thoughts and emotions have no real monetary value to anyone else but us. In other words, our emotions have no place in the marketplace.

Apart from our emotions, our house is just that too, a house. A roof, walls, and a floor in basic terms. It’s us that makes a house a home. It’s us that makes it special.

Though fond family memories certainly do occur in a house, they are not confined to it. Our emotions stay with us no matter where we are or go. Letting go of a house is not letting go of our memories.

I will always treasure the great house where we grew up. This was our extended family home, a gathering place, a big  one, a special one, the one where four generations of our family shared life and happy times together until I was almost ten years old. When there, so were our great grandparents, our grand parents and our parents. This is where my first memories are. I had every possible attachment in the world to it.

The house is long gone now. In fact it’s a parking lot next to a church, as it has been for the last 42 years. When back in my home town, from time to time I go back to that parking lot. I like to sit there and think. Recollect. Remember. Savor. I look at the magnolia tree that still stands there, the one my mother’s mother planted way back when.

To another that magnolia tree is just a magnolia tree. That’s all it is. To me though, through my fond memory filter, it’s so much more than that. I remember it at its beginning. When it was young. I grew up with that tree; it’s a stand-tall life affirmation given birth from a loving hand.

And as much as that tree might be worth to me, it’s not worth more than most any other magnolia tree to someone else.

It’s not remembering the house, or the tree, that’s so special, so heart warming, though. It’s the people I remember who are. It’s them, not the house or thing, where our emotions attach.

As much as I identified that first house with family, there is another one, the one my grandmother built more than 50 years ago. My parents live there now, as they have for over 35 years. During that time it has become as special as the first house was. It has long been our family home. Sooner or later though, and I don’t want to think about it, this house too will be gone.

But  the home that lives in our heart will never be gone. That’s mythic, not tangible. Our memories will never be compromised by a sale, demolition, asphalt or time. In other words, we don’t need to cling to a house, or overprice it, to safe keep our emotions.

 How to take Emotion out of the value equation  :
Removing emotion out of a house is not easy for any of us. It just takes willingness, which is the hard part. It comes with a tough mental resolve to be objective. (It only takes an exorcist in the most extreme cases.)

After willingness it takes a little effort to gather all of the market data, which then should produce a desire to avoid the meaningful costs involved when emotion is not overruled. This comes with acceptance that properly pricing a home for sale results in getting more in a shorter period of time (see study of how right pricing gets more here, and what we mean by all of the data here).

In Summary:
1. Recognize that our emotions about our house have no monetary value to anyone else.
2. Accept that misplaced emotion costs both time and money.
3. Resolve to be objective.
4. Accept current market reality when pricing a house (i.e. price it to sell now, not what it might have been years ago.)

 EGO  :
Perhaps what contributes even more than emotion in over pricing a house is ego.

Sometimes trying to get more for something than its worth is considered greed. That’s not our take on things however. We don’t believe people are by nature greedy. We look at it from another perspective. We believe greed, as the word is normally used, is a subset of ego. Lets make that excessive ego, one that operates beyond reality.

The nature of ego is self centered. Well, that’s what it is; ego is self. Most of the time it’s healthy, in check. But when our self center is out of balance, it’s been my experience that we make poor decisions, become inflexible, opinionated, and often rigid beyond reason. It also has a tendency of running other people away.

So ego out of control is arrogance, there’s no wonder there. When it comes to over valuing something, isn’t it arrogance that paves the way?

It’s never a good thing when excessive ego appears in the mix to sell a house. It always results in a home being over priced, and particularly in a buyers market like ours in South Lake Tahoe; it wastes real time and costs real money every time it does.

We often refer to excessive EGO as E dging G ood O ut.

When discussing the value of a house, here’s a few things one hears that suggest excessive ego may be about to introduce itself into the mix:

• “I don’t need the money” (to sell)
• “I don’t really have to sell” (so why put the house on the market?)
• “I have to make at least…” (usually it’s in round numbers, large ones, like $250,000, or $500,000, or $1M)
• “I’ll get my price or I won’t sell at all” (this one makes sure it won’t)

 How to take Ego out of the value equation :
Remember that selling a house is not a contest. It is not a testament to who’s smarter, who’s the best businessman, the best financial investor, or who can make more money than another. Selling a house doesn’t prove anything to anybody else that’s not involved in the sale.

Selling a house is about getting on with one’s family plan. That’s what’s most important of all. With that as the priority, the goal is then to get the most out of the market that the market will allow… within the time frame of the family plan.

We don’t mean to be simplistic about the check and balance of ego, Lord knows ours needs trimming from time to time. But it is really simple when pricing a house. Anything more than market reality is ego. Plain and simple.

To make sure excessive ego is out of the mix, a home need be priced within the reasonable range based on current market conditions. To do that, you must have all of the numbers, and then discuss them within the context of your family plan with an agent you trust… who knows the market cold. Here’s an example of what we mean by all of the numbers.

We also post about market reality on this blog all of the time as well. If you don’t already have an agent you trust, and/or if you’d like us to gather all of the numbers for you, please call or email us.

Posted by Richard Bolen on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 3:10 pm.