Selling your home doesn't have to be difficult. A good understanding of your market, a strong motivation to sell, and a careful marketing strategy should ultimately attract several buyers and offers.
However, there are some homes on the market that end up sitting there for months and months, never having the MLS status change from "Active" to "Pending." What's wrong with these properties?
Whether you attempt to sell your home yourself or hire a real estate broker to help you, it's important to do some basic things to help make your home more desirable and get more foot traffic from qualified, ready buyers. Here are 5 things to make sure to apply to the sale of your home:
1) Price your home correctly. This is a tough one for sellers to swallow. There's no magic number or special formula to stick with on this. I've noticed with many sellers (and for me as a seller of my own property before) that they'd like to list the home slightly above the market value determined. The decision is ultimately up to you (the seller) to set the price, but try your best to be realistic about the list price. One thing that you probably don't want is your home to sit on the market for too long; an overpriced home may do just that and create the perception to buyers that there's something "wrong" with the property, or even something wrong with the seller.
2) Make your home presentable. This doesn't mean that you have to make your home model-perfect for every showing. But keep your home neat, tidy, and take away any clutter as best as possible. Rent a storage unit offsite if you need to. If you're unsure about what to do, go check out a couple of open houses nearby and see how they do it. What attracted you within the home? What didn't? Then organize your own home accordingly, if possible. Now if you can't get your home into a better showing condition, keep in mind that it may deter some buyers and could affect the offer prices that may be presented to you.
3) Make your home accessible. You can have the most beautiful home on the block, but if it's difficult to get people to see the inside of your home, it's unlikely that the offers will be rolling in. Try to take the time to arrange your schedule so that your home can be shown very easily during at least the first 2 weeks that it's listed. That's usually when most of the foot traffic comes through anyway. If that's not possible, do several open houses (particularly on the weekends) and make sure that it's clear to buyers that these are the only opportunities to see the inside of the property. Try to allow showings during the weekdays as well, especially now during the summer when the sun stays up until almost 9:00pm. Buyers are searching for homes pretty late in the day right now.
4) Make sure your MLS info is accurate and complete. If you are listing the home without an agent, the same applies to your own ads. Make sure that your agent inputs the listing information accurately in the MLS so that people aren't showing up to your doorstep at the wrong times, or they don't get lost, etc. Again, the key is to get them inside your neat, tidy, uncluttered home!
5) Make sure your agent is responsive. If you hire a broker to list your home, make sure that the agent you select is responsive to not just you but to the buyers' agents as well. The better rapport that your listing agent has with the agent representing your selected buyer, the smoother the transaction will likely go. Now rapport doesn't mean that the agents should become best buddies, but both agents should be able to have a civil, productive conversation to negotiate terms without creating any animosity. You should be able to sense this with your listing agent based on how he/she is with you and the buyers' feedback that he/she communicates to you.
If you have any questions about this post or any other real estate related items, please feel free to contact me.
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