Selling Tips
Detach yourself emotionally from the property you are selling. Whether it’s a 2 year old home, a 25 year residence or a multi-generation family estate.
When you decide to sell your property it is important that you cut your emotional ties to the home, it will be someone else’s pride and joy soon anyways. For many it is hard to leave a home, a place where you ate, slept, and lived for years. The sooner you disconnect from the home, which is just a material object, the sooner you move on with selling and buying a new one. Change the things in the home that make it uniquely yours. You may like your personal touch, but others may not. Your goal is to have your home appeal to the widest number of prospective buyers as quickly as possible. Early offers are usually the best offers.
Mass appeal is when buyers immediately see themselves living in your house. Help prospective buyers do this by removing all traces of yourself. Clean all magnets, pictures and notes off the refrigerator and put away all your personal photos. Storing some of your furniture and knick-knacks while your home is on the market will make your house look larger. Painting the interior of the house with modern neutral colours can help buyers visualize themselves in your home. By making your home neutral people can imagine what they would do with the paint schemes, furniture layout, and extra space if the home were theirs, and you want the home to be theirs.
Mass appeal is the goal of home staging most of the time. In some instances, niche markets, your home needs to be professionally staged to create the best opportunity for a sale. Contact a home stager for more information.
Getting Top Dollar
The best chance for selling your property is within the first 4 weeks. Studies show that the longer a property stays on the market, the less the seller will net. Listed below are the four main factors to accomplishing this goal.
1. PRICING FACTOR
It is very important to price your property at a competitive market value right when you list it. The market is so competitive that even over-pricing by a few thousand dollars could mean that your house will not sell. It's interesting, but your first offer is usually your best offer. Here are reasons for pricing your property at the market value right from the start in order to net you the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time.
An overpriced home:
Minimizes offers
Lowers showings
Lowers agent response
Limits financing
Limits qualified buyers
Nets less for the seller
80% of the marketing is done when we decide on what price to list your home. If you were unwilling to list at current market value, you would be better off not putting it on the market at this time.
2. CLEAN FACTOR
Most people are turned off by even the smallest amount of uncleanness or odor when buying a home. Sellers lose thousands of dollars because they do not adequately clean. If your house is squeaky clean, you will be able to sell your home faster and net hundreds, if not thousands of dollars more. If you are planning on moving, why not get rid of that old junk now so that your house will appear larger? Make more space. Odors must be eliminated especially if you have dogs, cats, or young children in diapers or if you are a smoker. You may not notice the smell, but the buyers do! Most agents have a difficult time communicating to their sellers about odor. If you employ an agent to get the most amount of money for you, please don't take offense if he must confront you about odor problems.
3. ACCESS FACTOR
Top selling agents will not show your home if both the key and access are not readily available. They do not have time to run around town all day picking up and dropping off keys. They want to sell homes! The greatest way to show a house is to have a key! When your home is being shown, please do the following:
Keep all lights on
Keep all drapes and shutters open
Keep all doors unlocked
Leave soft music playing
Take a short walk with your children and pets
Let the buyer be at ease and let the agents do their job
4. PAINT, CARPET & FLOORING FACTOR
Paint is your best improvement investment for getting a greater return on your money. Paint makes the whole house smell clean and neat. If your house has chipped paint, exposed wood, or the paint looks faded, it is time to paint. If your carpet is worn, dirty, outdated, or an unusual color, you may need to seriously consider replacing it. Many houses do not sell because of this problem. Don't think that buyers have more money than you have to replace carpet. They don't. They simply buy elsewhere.
14 important facts to consider before you try to sell your own home
Occasionally, one can see "For Sale By Owner" signs, and some owners think that selling their own home will not only save them money, but believe they have an advantage over the sellers that have their home listed by a reputable Realtor. Before you decide to take on this very important and legally complicated process…remember not even most Real Estate Lawyer's recommend selling your own home yourself in today's market. Here are a few of the reasons why:
1. You are limiting your exposure to potential buyers (less than 10% of what a good real estate broker will generate) which theoretically means your home will take ten to fifteen times longer to sell on the market.
2. The longer a home is on the market the lower the selling price is. Why? Because most buyers think that if the home has not sold after this long... there must be something wrong with the home.
3. The selling/buying process begins AFTER the buyer leaves your home. Most sellers think that all it takes is for someone to see their home, fall in love with the great decor... and the offer automatically will follow. Remember that the buying process begins after they leave your home. If a real estate sales representative does not represent the buyer, and they are looking on their own…they usually leave the home and start to talk themselves out of the buying process. If the buyer is represented by a real estate professional Realtors© are trained on how to overcome buyers remorse--a very common occurrence.
4. Because of the limited exposure you will very likely end up with a lower selling price. Remember, in order to generate the highest price possible for your home… selling means exposure. You need the maximum exposure possible, to generate the highest price possible.
5. Most buyers find it extremely awkward to negotiate or even to talk directly with sellers and therefore avoid FSBO properties.
6. Lack of negotiating experience and lack of pertinent information often will result in a lower selling price, or worse yet, a bungled contract and possible lawsuits.
7. The majority of qualified buyers are working with experienced real estate professionals.
8. Many serious buyers will pass by a FSBO home merely because they recognize that it is not in the real estate mainstream, this can some times make them wary.
9. As most local buyers now retain an experienced real estate sales person to represent them as their buyer-agency, you will probably be negotiating against an experienced professional.
10. Expected savings in broker's fees will also be greatly reduced if you offer a selling commission to entice real estate sales representatives to bring potential buyers.
11. If you are planning to use a Lawyer to help you negotiate the offer, then your lawyer's fees will be considerably higher.
12. Only real estate sales representatives have access to the up-to-date market information. News reports cannot approach the timeliness or specificity available to real estate sales people. Further, real estate sales representatives are involved in home sales much more frequently than the average homeowner is. This familiarity leads to a degree of expertise that provides an edge on negotiating and successful selling.
13. You only pay the commission to the real estate broker, if they successfully sell your home at the price you are happy with.
14. Accepting an offer is one thing, ensuring a safe and successful closing is quite another. Real estate transactions usually always have problems on closing. At times, expecting the Buyers and
Sellers Lawyer's to fight it out or resolve the problems, can sometimes mean the deal is lost. This is the time that your experienced real estate professional, can be the most important. Your Realtor can act as a great mediator. Lawyers MUST act only on their client's instructions and are not paid to negotiate.
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