5 Keys to Getting Your Home SOLD

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5 Keys to Getting Your Home SOLD
Keys to Getting Your Home Sold
The advice for North Bloomfield Properties home
sellers is prolific. There is no shortage of
articles online with tips for preparing, staging,
pricing and marketing a home. With the volumes
of information available, there are still 5 basic
truths, or 5 keys to getting your home sold 1.
Price Your Home Realistically
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• So often sellers want to try their luck at
  starting high and adjusting their price along the
  way. To a certain extent, this strategy sounds
  logical to a lot of people, they may think they
  need to price their home higher for negotiating
  room. The problem with this logic is that real
  estate is not like retail sales.
• You can see by the chart on the right that
  pricing pricing above what the market suggests
  will narrow the percentage of buyers who come to
  see your home. These numbers are well documented
  over years of real estate market statistics. If
  you price your home 15 or more above the
  comparative homes in your market, you will find
  that you dont get many showings. More than
  likely, all you will hear for the first few weeks
  is crickets!
• points out several concerns that tend to get home
  sellers stuck. The top concern of would-be home
  sellers Getting a good price when selling your
  home. It seems that nearly half of the
  homeowners in cities across the US would move if
  they could be assured of not leaving equity
  behind when they sell. The answer is to price the
  home accurately.
• The most important key to getting your home sold
  is to price it correctly. The market is what
  determines that. As much as we would all like to
  get as much as possible, built in market
  conditions work against you when you reach too
  high. Here are three barriers youll face when
  you try to get more for your home than its
  really worth
• The truth is, buyers are savvy. They are most
  likely working with a buyers agent who is doing
  a comparative market analysis, letting them know
  when a house is overpriced. The buyers agent
  has a fiduciary responsibility to their buyer, to
  look out for their best interests. And one of
  those interests is to not overpay for a home.
• The biggest issue is that even if a buyer happens
  to fall in love with your overpriced
• home and agree to pay your asking price, the
  chances are great that the home wont appraise
  for the amount you want. Youll have to
  renegotiate anyway, or risk losing the buyer.
• The first 30 days on the market are crucial. That
  is the time period when a home gets the
• most showings. If you squander that golden time
  by overpricing, you wont get it back. This is
  especially true in a real estate market with a
  shortage of inventory. Buyers are aware of the
  lack of homes on the market and many are viewing
  them within the first few days, knowing that they
  might be sold within the first week.
• 2. Condition

When you are trying to sell your home, you need
to remember that you are in competition with all
the other homes in your area, price range, size
and style of home. You will make out
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much better if your home is in the best condition
it can be, repairs are done and its staged and
clutter-free. When your agent prepares a
comparative market analysis for you as you make
plans to list your home for sale, take notice of
the condition of the homes that are on the market
and that have sold recently. These are the homes
that your likely buyers have been to see, or
will see soon. Do everything you can to make sure
your home competes. That being said,
over-improving for the neighborhood is not a good
idea. Debbie Drummond, luxury real estate in Las
Vegas, points out the dangers of over-improving
your home. She wisely points out that even if a
seller could get an offer that would cover the
cost of their over-improvements, an appraiser is
not likely to give homeowners credit for all the
upgrades. Staging may be helpful in showing your
home in the best possible light. Buyers should be
able to imagine themselves living in the spaces
of your home, without the distraction of your
stuff. Read more about the Rules of Staging. 3.
Photos Video
When buyers are looking online, as more than 92
of them do, they want to see photos, lots of
photos. Statistics show that the more photos you
present in your online marketing (MLS and
various real estate websites) the higher your
chances of getting a buyer to see the home. Make
sure your agent takes lots of photosprofessional
quality photos. Theres nothing worse than
seeing a handful of awful photos taken from an
agents smartphone. We use a
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professional photographer to make sure the home
and its rooms are shown in the best possible
light. Our MLS allows for 30 photos and 2 virtual
tours. Having a high-definition walk-through
video tour increases the likelihood of showings
even more. In the internet age, buyers have come
to expect a certain level of information from
real estate websites. Remember, if you cant get
people to get off the computer and into a car to
see your home, you cant sell it. 4. Make Your
Home Available
One of the most frustrating things to a buyers
agent is to find a beautiful house that your
buyer will most likely want to see, but the
showing instructions are difficult to work with.
Showings only between 5 and 7 pm, and not on
Sundays. And oh yes, 24 hours notice. Thats
difficult when your buyer works on Saturdays and
can only see homes after work and on Sunday.
Its nearly impossible when you have an
out-of-town buyer who is only available for one
day. Asking for a lengthy amount of time to get
notice of a showing can be a real problem. If a
buyer is in the area and sees your home on the
market, it is to your advantage to make every
opportunity to accommodate them. Any buyer can be
the one to say yes, this is my dream house!
The more you constrict your showing schedule, the
more potential buyers you turn away. points out
the downsides to the 24-hour showing notice
requirement. By requiring 24-hour notice, you
could wind up making it harder for your home to
sell. His article points out several ways that
sellers and their agents can arrange showings. I
know that selling a home can be an interruption,
it dominates your life for a few months. But
being flexible is a must. You are in competition,
and you have to make your home as easy to see as
possible. Otherwise, you just end up selling your
neighbors home. Think of it this way, the more
flexible you are with showings, the sooner your
home will sell and the sooner you can get on
with your life. 5. Spread a Wide Marketing Net
In this day and age, buyers come from everywhere.
One of the keys to getting your home sold after
all the preparation is done, is to get buyers
into your home. You cant sell it if people
dont see it.
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Not only must your home be listed everywhere
buyers are, you must spread a net as wide as
possible with your price, condition and
marketing. All of the digital assets, like
photography and video, great descriptions and
marketing savvy, must all work together to
appeal to the broadest audience of likely
buyers. Using a real estate agent with experience
and marketing savvy is crucial to get the best
results when selling your home.