Serious About
Selling? 5 Steps to Make Your Home
the Best on the Block
We all want to be good neighbors. But when it
comes to selling your home, it’s not just about “keeping up with the Joneses.”
It’s about outshining them at every opportunity!
If you’re looking to sell your home fast and
for the most money possible, you’ll need a strategy to set it apart from all
the other listings competing for buyers in your area. That’s why we’ve outlined
our proven, five-step plan for serious sellers.
Use these five tactics to help your listing
get noticed, win over buyers, and net a higher sales price than your neighbors!
STEP 1:
Stage Your Home to Show Its Full Potential
The average seller will do the minimum to
prepare their home for market: clean and declutter, fix anything that’s broken,
mow the lawn. And while those tasks are essential, today’s buyers want more
than just a clean house and tidy yard. When they dream of buying a new home,
they envision a designer house with modern finishes. Help them see your
property’s full potential by staging it.
Home staging is one of the hottest trends in
real estate—because it works! According to the Real Estate Staging Association,
homes that are professionally staged spend 73% less time on the market.1
So what exactly is staging? In a broad sense,
staging is the act of preparing your home for market. The goal is to highlight
your home’s strengths, minimize any deficiencies, and help buyers envision
themselves living in the space. When staging a home, you might rearrange the
furniture to make a room feel larger or remove heavy curtains to make it appear
brighter.
Our group hires a professional
home stager, who has specialized training and experience, to maximize the
appeal of their home to the largest number of potential buyers using your existing furniture.
If your home requires more than this type of service, we can help you determine the appropriate
budget and effort required to push your home ahead of the competition in your
neighborhood. The good news is, an investment in staging pays off. A 2018
survey found that 85% of staged homes sold for 6-25% more than their unstaged
neighbors homes.2
STEP 2:
Draw Buyers in with High-Quality Listing Photos
You only have one chance to make a first
impression with potential buyers. And many buyers will view photos of a listing
before they decide whether or not to visit it in person. In fact, 87% of buyers
find photos “very useful” in their home search.3 Poor-quality or
amateur-looking listing photos could keep buyers from ever stepping through
your door.
Since good photography plays such an important
role in getting your property noticed, we only work with the top local
professionals to photograph our listings. But we don’t just rely on their
photography skills when it comes to showcasing your home.
We go the extra mile to ensure your listing
photos showcase the true essence of your home. We’re always on site during the
photo shoot to help the photographer capture the best angles and lighting, and
to let them know about unique or compelling selling features that they should
photograph. The extra effort pays off in the end. In fact, listings with
high-quality photography sell 32% faster than the competition … and often for
more money!4
STEP 3:
Price It Properly From the Start
Even in a strong real estate market, there are
homes that will sit unsold for months on end. This can be the “kiss of death”
in real estate, as buyers tend to imagine that there must be something wrong
with the property, even if it’s not the case.
But why are those houses still on the market
in the first place? It’s because they are often priced too high.
Every buyer has a budget. And most will be
viewing listings within a particular price range. If your property is
overpriced, it can’t properly compete with the other houses they’re viewing
that are priced correctly. Which means it’ll sit on the market until you’re
eventually forced to drop the price.
Alternatively, if you price your home
aggressively, it can be among the nicest homes that buyers have seen within
their budget. This can lead to emotionally-attached buyers, who are often
willing to pay a premium or settle for fewer seller concessions. And in certain
markets, it can lead to a multiple-offer situation, or bidding war. The end
result? More money in your pocket.
We can help you determine the ideal listing
price for your home in the current market. Pricing it properly in the beginning
is the best way to ensure a fast and profitable sale.
STEP 4:
Put on a Good Show at Each Showing
Once buyers are interested enough to schedule
a visit, it’s crucial that you put on a good show at each showing.
The first step is to make your home readily
available—and often on short notice—for buyers to see it. A missed showing is a
missed opportunity to sell your home. If you set too many restrictions on when
it’s available to view, busy buyers will simply skip over your listing and move
on to the next one.
Part of making your home available means
keeping it relatively show-ready as long as it’s on the market. Most of us
don’t live picture-perfect lives, and our homes reflect the day-to-day reality
of our busy (and sometimes messy) families. But a little extra effort spent
keeping your home clean, fresh-smelling, and ready for buyers will help it sell
faster … which means you can get back to your regular routine as quickly as
possible!
STEP 5:
Use a Proven Promotion Plan
Most agents are still marketing their listings
like they did 20 years ago… put a sign
in the yard, put the listing in the MLS, and pray that it sells. Yet, we know that
93% of buyers search for real estate listings online.3
That’s why we invest in the latest training
and technology—to ensure your listing appears in the places where buyers are
most likely to look. Our dual-level promotion strategy includes both pre-launch
activities designed to seed the marketplace and post-listing activities to
ensure your home stays top-of-mind with potential buyers.
By utilizing online and social marketing
platforms to connect with consumers and offline channels to connect with local
real estate agents, your property gets maximum exposure to prospective buyers.
LET’S
GET MOVING
Are you thinking about listing your home? Get
a head start on your competition! Contact us for a copy of our Home Seller’s
Guide, which offers a complete guide to the home selling process. Or call us to
schedule a free no-commitment consultation. We’d love to put together a custom
plan to maximize the sales potential of your property!
Sources:
1. Real Estate Staging
Association - https://www.realestatestagingassociation.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=304550&module_id=164548
2. Home Staging Resources - https://www.homestagingresources.com/2018-home-staging-statistics/
3. National Association of
Realtors - https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2018-real-estate-in-a-digital-world-12-12-2018.pdf
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