What's Needed To Sell Your House For Top Dollar!
With a quick online search you can find countless amounts of properties that recently sold and it would appear as if it were basic market factors of supply and demand which gets a property to the closing table. However what you do not see are the many homes every day that fail to sell and get withdrawn or expired off the market. Selling a home is not a simple action or task by any means and is in fact a full-fledged project. Simply putting your home on the market does not guarantee its sell and there are various factors behind the scenes that greatly influence the sale of a home. With increasing access to information via internet homes sales are now more competitive than ever! Everyone is looking at everything in an instant! If you want your home to sell it would have to stand out from the hundreds of competing homes in your market. Below are guidelines and factors to implement to give your property the best chance of getting'
to closing.
THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT
I often get asked what sells a house and there are countless variables that I can go on forever writing about. To sum everything up the three most important things that sell homes in order of importance, least to greatest are Condition, Price, and Agent.
Condition
The average buyer does not want to put in any work when they move into a property, moreover the average buyer does not see the potential a house can have, and they would almost always like to move in “turn- key”. Simply because comps that are similar do not warrant the same price. Nevertheless you can always be competitive by pricing your home attractively above a lesser conditioned property or aggressively below a better conditioned property.
Price
The listing price you start with is absolutely crucial and sets the pace on the entire course of your home selling process and it is imperative that you look at the competition and fully understand what your home is worth and what it could potentially sell for. The second your home hits the market is when it will generate the most views and this price will determine your days on market, your online views, and your showings etc. Making price adjustments happen as no one can accurately predict constant changes in the market. But greatly overpricing feeling you can get more and hoping for the best never results in a positive outcome. If your house is overpriced no one will look at it and it will sit on the market. Overpricing your house results in constant price drops and leads to your house selling less than what it could have originally. Look at the competition and envision yourself as a buyer. What would you pay for?
(Many say location, location, location is what sells homes. However the location of a property is factored into your price. Price > location always).
Agent
Last but certainty not least is your agent. This article is simply the basics of what sells home and your real estate professional should address and take care of everything discussed such as condition, price, setting up pictures, obtaining website exposure, marketing, and having a game plan established and many more including always being available to show and confirm showings to prospective clients, answer any questions about your property, negotiate and write contracts, talk to other agents, title companies, lenders ect. There are thousands of agents to choose from be sure to sit down with a realtor and decide to sell your property with who you feel comfortable with. There is no guarantee that your house will sell in a certain time frame but when knowing the expectations there is a very high rate of success. Nothing else matters unless you feel comfortable they can sell it. When choosing a realtor, find one that you feel comfortable with and one that you can trust to get the job done.
Below are methods that your realtor should implement to sell your home for its best market value:
Quality Pictures (Seriously)
Obviously this is an important factor that is surprisingly greatly overlooked. Before anyone physically looks inside your property or even reads the description the first thing they want to see is how it looks on the computer screen to determine if it is even worth their time. Shopping for a property to many is a joyful process and the average potential buyer wants to envision themselves living there as- is and if your pictures are not high quality and are not taken professionally competing houses with pictures that are will get more interest, more showings, and more offers. The average buyers cannot see the potential of a home if the pictures are not up to par.
Even high quality cameras alone are far from enough to get the job done. Each photo should include the ceiling height of the rooms to fully show the space. This can be done by obtaining a wide angle lens, an attachment available for many high definition cameras. In addition, staging can be a valuable component to not only show the potiential of the property but to fully show the space of rooms.
A professional photographer is highly recommended they have all the necessary equipment and know how much lighting is needed and what settings are would be most beneficial to show your property to its fullest potential.
Online exposure (a lot of it, like a lot)
80% of all home buyers are searching online so this is an essential place to market. However, take a moment and think about your favorite real estate website to view properties. Although it may be a popular site such as Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com ect. Now think about how many sites in the world provide active real estate listings (easily hundreds of thousands). Now think about all the potential buyers in the world and now think about what specific site they are using for their individual home search. Your property could be listed on the most popular site in the world which is Zillow however it is still not getting over 90% of the potential views. Zillow alone has around 9.17% of the total real estate views and even the top ten real estate sites fail to reach 50% of total views.
That means that if your listing is posted one site you are missing over 90% of potential online buyers and if you post your listing on the top ten sites alone you are still not reaching over 50% of potential buyers online.
It only takes one buyer to sell your home and every view counts. Of course no one has time to post their listing on thousands of sites but there are services such as the mls (multiple listing service) that streamline and get your listing on multiple sites all at once and if not being used chances of selling a property are very slim.
Marketing Plan and a GAMEPLAN!
Again, something that is overlooked! Online is a great way to market properties and aside from simply listing the property on a website there should be campaigns to increase exposure. You can look up the total number of views on your listing for a specific site and use methods to increase exposure, and generate traffic thus making your property more likely to appear when potential buyers are searching for listings.
But in addition to online marketing the presence of physical marketing tends to go unnoticed. If 80% of buyers are searching online it is imperative to reach them but what about the other 20%? Again it only takes one buyer to purchase your home. Targeting locations of potential buyers with “Just listed” or “coming soon” fliers fully advertising the luxuries of your property could stand out to a buyer or even find a buyer even before it officially hits the market!
There are many additional measures for marketing such as utilizing databases, email campaigns, open houses, networking events and many more! It is essential that the most cost and time effective measures are implemented.
Finally, you should have an idea of not only what you want to do but where you want to be given a point of time and how to adjust if necessary. For Example:
If this property is priced at X and is on the market for X amount of days and does not have X amount of showing/ offers/ views ect. Then I will X.
So in practice it is good to have something like this planned:
If this property is priced at $500,000 and does not get at least one offer in one month then I will lower the price and increase marketing.
Or
If this property is priced at $500,000 and does not get any interest in the first week l will lower the price to $480,000.