SAN DIEGO COUNTY LEADS THE NATION IN VALUE RANGE MARKETING

Value Range Marketing (VRM) took the real estate market by storm in 1994 and has grown immensely in San Diego County throughout the past decade. Developed by Prudential California Realty as an alternative to the traditional manner in which homes arc bought and sold, VRM markets properties using price ranges. The concept reached an exceptional milestone in 2004 with 56 percent of all listings in San Diego County using value range pricing, according to Sandicor, San Diego County's multiple listing service (MLS).

In 2005, value range pricing made another breakthrough when real estate Web sites started to include range pricing for their listings. Home buyers and sellers can now search for listings using a chosen price or range and see all VRM listings whose selling price, including both the low or high end, fall within the search criteria. Lund, a Realtor with Prudential California Realty in Carlsbad and five-time winner of the company's award for most listings sold using VRM, said, "San Diego and Orange Counties arc the first markets to recognize Value Range Marketing. This is a very exciting step that paves the way for Realtors in the rest of the country to benefit from the proven success of VRM pricing in their own marketplace."

With value range pricing, the seller promises to entertain any offer within a set price range, which leads the way to negotiations. VRM grants sellers the privilege of determining their home's market value. Plus, it allows them the opportunity to achieve a maximum price and still stay competitive in the market. By using range pricing, more potential buyers are exposed to the house, and the more people you get to sec your house, the quicker it will sell.

VRM also benefits the buyer during the search process. Most buyers know how much they can and want to spend when looking for property and typically search within a "range of affordability." Properties marketed using VRM will appear in more "range of affordability" searches, dramatically broadening the number of available properties for a buyer to consider.

For property sellers, value range pricing eliminates two greatest fears: under-pricing a property, which could result in leaving money on the table for the sellers, and over-pricing, resulting in the wrong buyers looking at the sellers' home, and driving potential buyers to consider more realistically prices properties.

"It is gratifying to see that consumers now have the full support of the California Association of Realtors (CAR) and the local MLS when they use a price range to market their property," said Gregg Toyama, director of strategic developments for Prudential California Realty, who first introduced the concept of value range pricing to Prudential in 1993.

Value Range Marketing has become a great resource for home buyers and sellers in San Diego County, helping many people get the most from their real estate transaction and American dream of homeownership.