Nine Tips For Selling Your Home (Fast)
Marketing and selling your home is a collaboration between you and your agent. Success in this venture requires understanding the market and your competition, along with commitment, attention to detail and follow through. Consider these nine tips to get your home sold in the shortest time and at the highest price.
1) Price Strategically
Research, market knowledge and experience are the foundation of a successful pricing strategy – one that gets your home sold quickly and for top dollar. Your home’s unique attributes, competing listings, recent comparable sales, and market momentum all come into play. Be objective; emotion has no place in pricing your home.
Resist the temptation to overprice. Overpricing can make your home invisible in on-line searches. In other words, in price range searches, an overpriced home won’t show up among its peers. It will, however, be included in results among homes with which it can’t compete. In either case, you are missing real buyers. Further, an over-priced home invariably languishes on the market through one or more price reductions until ultimately selling for less than it would have sold for if priced correctly from the start.
2) Offer Market Rate Buyer Agent Compensation
New rules relating to buyer agent compensation (commission) recently went into effect. The rules support more transparency and flexibility with respect to how much and by whom real estate agents are to be compensated in a transaction. As a seller, it is important to understand your options relating to paying a buyer agent commission, and the implications of choosing among your options, particularly as they relate to encouraging agent showings and buyer offers.
3) Make the Obvious Repairs
From a buyer’s perspective, a home that appears to be well-maintained probably is. Dripping faucets, cracked windowpanes and flickering light fixtures will make prospective buyers leery of the parts of the home that they can’t readily see. Make the obvious repairs to your home before any showings; the objective is to impress upon buyers that your home has been lovingly cared for day-to-day. Your agent should guide you in coming up with a list of items to address before opening your home to showings.
4) Stage Your Home
Home staging is simply preparing a home to appeal to the broadest range of buyers. Staging a home generally involves neutralizing the decor, de-cluttering, de-personalizing, adjusting lighting and arranging the existing furniture and accessories. Staging accentuates a home’s best features and downplays any marketing challenges (like small rooms or an awkward floor plan). Staged homes are proven to sell quicker and for more money than those that are not staged. The best agents will provide a staging assessment and staging recommendations.
5) Have a Photography Strategy
Professional photography is the cornerstone of any serious home marketing effort. Great photography delivers traffic – it generates buyer excitement and makes your home a “must see.” Even after touring the home, buyers often revisit online photos and forward them to family and friends, who can influence buying decisions.
The overriding objective of a photo strategy is to entice buyers, rather than to simply convey information; most agents fail to understand this and bog down the listing with too many photos, many of which add no value to (or hurt) the presentation of the home. Every shot must be staged, directed and have a purpose in the overall presentation of the home. Professional photography should be arranged, managed and paid for by your agent.
6) Keep Your Home Show Ready
Because agents often give little notice in scheduling a showing, your home should be kept show ready. Keep the kitchen and baths sparkling clean, the trash empty, odors controlled, lightbulbs working, carpets clean, beds made, yard manicured etc. Every showing matters!
7) Make Agent Showings Easy
The easier it is for agents to show a home, the more often it will be shown. The more often a home is shown, the quicker it will sell. Make it convenient for agents to show your property by minimizing showing time restrictions and notice requirements. Agents often schedule multiple showings per buyer outing; if your home is difficult to fit into the tour, it may get skipped.
8) Actively Manage the Listing
Marketing a home is an on-going campaign that should continue until the home sells. The marketplace is dynamic; prospective buyers enter the market and competing listings appear daily. Your success as a seller depends on your agent’s commitment to actively manage your listing day-to-day. This means staying abreast of the market, promptly responding to agent and buyer inquiries, following up on showings, staying current on the competition and knowing how to strategically reposition the home when necessary.
9) Negotiate the Best Deal
An agent’s contract skills, negotiating savvy and transaction experience are vital professional qualifications that are too often overlooked. An offer is worthless if it is not successfully negotiated to your advantage and properly documented, or the transaction is not professionally managed through closing. Make sure your agent will be your advocate and has the professional qualifications to negotiate and close the best deal for you.
John Stemlar is a Principal and the Managing Broker of Sage Real Estate Advisors, a boutique Atlanta residential real estate firm.