by Moe Zilla

Created on: July 26, 2010

There's two easy ways to calculate the price for your personal assets. First there's a specific strategy where you devise an appropriate  markdown to ensure that you actually attract interest from potential buyers. But obviously, you could also simply sell your personal assets for 100 percent of their current open-market value. Beyond that, it's usually difficult to sell an asset for more than it's worth - unless you find an extremely gullible buyer. So as a rule of thumb, it's best to start out by offering the assets at their market value, and then gradually lowering the price. (Though unfortunately, if you're in a hurry to move your personal assets, you may have to start out offering them at a price that's already marked down.)

Wall Street Investors actually have this down to a science - and there's an important lesson to learn from the so-called "program traders." They'll offer a few shares of a stock at a high price, and then see if they sell better when the price is lowered. Over time, they can determine exactly how much of a mark-up they can get away with - and then they sell their remaining shares at that highest possible mark up. If you have the time, you should adopt the same strategy when pricing your personal assets.

But how do you determine the value of your assets on the open market? Sometimes it's as simple as doing a search on the web. On any given day, there's usually somebody on eBay or Amazon who's selling a comparable item that's just like yours. If you watch an auction until the end, you'll actually see the maximum dollar amount that someone was willing to pay.(And in a pinch, you can try to contact the buyer, or the losing bidders, and see if they're interested in purchasing your item as well!)

You can also call a few "bricks and mortar" shops and ask what they're selling your item for, although it's best to locate a collector who's knowledgeable about your particular assets.  But if your assets are gold or silver, there's an even easier solution: weigh them. The price of precious metals fluctuate daily, but they're carefully tracked by most of the top financial web sites. This makes it possible to determine the exact value of those personal assets, down to penny!

And remember that if you ultimately end selling your assets for less than their fair-market value, you may be able to deduct the difference as a loss on your income taxes!

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