★ Top 5 Home Seller Tips ★
Are you looking to sell your home for TOP DOLLAR?
Here are the Top 5 Home Seller tips that are guaranteed to drive the most traffic to your home, get you the most offers, and get your home into escrow in less than 30 DAYS!
TIP #1: GOOD QUALITY PHOTOS.
In the age of social media and the internet, over 74% of buyers use the internet to search for homes. Be VERY mindful that a buyer will look right over your home if the photos that are provided are not of good quality, have very few photos, or even worse.. No photos at all! Unless you are selling your home for a really deep discount, the home will not attract any traffic and the listing will go months without any traction, WHICH IS BAD! VERY BAD! The reason why this is very bad is because the amount of days that your home has been for sale is public. The first thing someone thinks when they see a home that has been listed for 100 or 200+ days is.. There’s something wrong with the house! This will scare off any prospective buyers or agents from showing your home and you might as well cancel the listing and start all over again.
Each and every photo of your home listed represents the overall mood and feeling of the home, so it is very important to provide visuals that will inspire a feeling of awe. The fact the home hasn’t been remodeled since the 1960’s is irrelevant! Just make sure the lighting is great and the spaces are open. We are not saying to go out there and cat-fish home buyers like Photoshopping grass on your front yard when it doesn’t have grass. That is a HUGE no no! IF you do this you will frustrate all buyers and agents viewing your home and the buyer or agent will drive up to your home with a feeling of disappointment. Even if the interior of your home is absolutely jaw-dropping, the buyer will already perceive you to be dishonest. We’ve actually witnessed this first hand so we know there are people out there doing this! We thought we were going to take our client to view a home with a nice grass yard and we arrived to a home with a dirt pit! And they left the sprinklers on so it turned into a mud pit! :0
Even though the bedroom and square foot count was exactly what our clients were looking for they wanted to skip the home. Don't let this happen to you! No cat-fishing or Photoshop. Buyer's want to be visually stimulated when looking for a home. Keep in mind that when a buyer is deciding on the amount that they want to offer they are going to reference back to the listing photos. Always make sure the photos emphasize the space in the home, are of great quality, and have good adequate lighting. Remember, you are providing the buyer visuals to imagine themselves living life within the home as if it was already theirs. If you don't say "wow" after viewing your listing photos, then neither will home buyers.
TIP #2 TIDY UP & DEPERSONALIZE.
This one is extremely important! Bright colored walls, funky fruit wallpaper, hand painted murals in the dining room, purple cabinets, stained glass windows. These were absolutely beautiful when you first got them done.. But it’s time for them to go! Especially if you want to sell your home fast and for top dollar. I know I know, It's difficult removing your personal possessions or changing the color of the home you’ve lived in for years, especially since we often have memories and emotional value tied to it but I can assure you it will be the best thing you can do! It will be practically impossible for someone to visualize your space as their own if the home is cluttered or personalized with your own personal decor that they just cannot see past!
Bright colored walls should always be painted. Stick to neutral colors like white or light grays and blues. But gray is so plain, yuck! Hey we get it, the avocado green in your restroom really makes the cabinets pop but let’s be honest here! Everyone might not be that into avocado green like you. No malice, it’s just the facts! A fresh interior painting will always attract a wide variety of buyers and the more neutral the colors, the better or wider the variety! If you skip this step, when the buyer’s agent asks them about your home they will simply say “Ohhh, the avocado green home… Uhhh yeahh.. I think we’ll pass.”
DON’T LET THIS BE YOU!
Decluttering is extremely important to keep in mind when taking photos of the home and showing the home to buyers. The photos and home need to look as open and neat as possible. Anyone that walks into your home will immediately get the feeling of open possibilities and can imagine themselves living in the space. A well kept home is always a huge factor for a buyer when considering which home to place an offer on. When a buyer walks into a home that is well kept and clean, the buyer is pleased to find a home so well maintained. Showing your home after a deep cleaning makes the buyers feel appreciative of the home. It makes them feel happy to take on your "precious goods" and continue to take care of the wonderful home.
TIP #3 LIGHT UPGRADES AND REPAIRS.
A few small buckets of paint can go a long way! Curb appeal is one of the most important aspects of buyer attraction so you want to make sure you start there, Painting your home’s exterior window trims and eaves is the first repair you would want to consider. Freshly painted window trims and eaves can make the exterior feel new! No need to fork out thousands of dollars to repaint the entire exterior, but if it fits the budget, painting the exterior can also reap huge rewards!
The interior can be equally important so the second items you would want to consider repainting and freshening up are your baseboards, crown moldings, stair rails, window trims, window skirts, and scuffed walls. Once again, this alone can make the area feel fresh and new which is what you want to accomplish to attract the most amount of buyers possible.
Other quick and inexpensive upgrades you can consider are replacing outlet face plates, new cabinet knobs or backsplash in the kitchen and restrooms, installing ceiling fans, adding accent walls, staining cabinets a different color, etc. Create a budget and consider doing some of the easier work yourself to save on costs and maximize your upgrades! Make sure to complete these upgrades right before picture day and whatever you do, choose neutral colors!
TIP #4 MAKE IT EASY TO SHOW.
Each buyer is in a different part of their journey. There are some buyers that work mornings, others work afternoons, and some might even work nights. Try to accommodate them as much as possible and you will find yourself with more offers than you can pick from! Nothing is worse than a gorgeous home that is absolutely stunning, but it is impossible to see!
Look we get it, some sellers wish to be present at all times because they do not feel comfortable with strangers in their home when they are not present. If you feel this way please keep in mind that licensed Realtors® have a specialized Supra lock box that only licensed Realtors® and sales agents have access to. When selling your home the Supra Lock box will typically be placed on a fixed part of your home (like the gas meter on the side of the home). This method provides security for the seller and listing agent because each time a buyer’s agent opens the lock box, their information is logged into the supra device and they are fully responsible and liable for anything that happens during that time frame and after if they left the home unsecure. The Supra Lock box can be programmed to only be accessible during specific time slots.
If a buyer wants to view the home while you are there, you can either stay in the home or leave while they complete their tour. From our experience, buyer’s like when the home is somewhat vacant so they can take their time viewing the home and express their true feelings in privacy. No one wants to say, “Look at that ugly room” or “That kitchen is fricken tiny!” right in front of the owner, If you are in their immediate area or even worse, shadowing their every move like Michael Myers, they will feel uncomfortable and rush during their viewing leaving nothing for them to remember but the weird person that was walking through the hallways staring at them.
You can give the buyers some privacy by waiting in the backyard as they view the interior with their agent, and waiting in the home as they view the backyard and exterior. This is a simple way to ensure that you maximize the time frame the buyer has to view your home so they can fall deeper and deeper in love with it!
TIP#5 DON'T OVERPRICE.
If you really want to drive the most traffic to your home, sell as fast as possible, and for top dollar… Than DO NOT overprice your home! That is the absolute worst thing you can possibly do and you might as well not even list your home. If you were to follow only one out of these five tips, than this is the one! When you price the home slightly under fair market value, it will create a literal frenzy and everyone will be talking about your home! Your going to have to hire a valet service with how many people are going to be coming to see your home!
Let’s face it! The market is transparent. Any realtor or savvy home buyer can simply look up your property’s comparable sales and get a good range of what the fair market value of your home is! We get it, some sellers have a fixed amount in their mind that their home should sell for because they installed “this or that” in their home and their home is better because of “this reason!” In the end of the day, the only thing that can set the value of your home is the actual market. If you are adding to your home’s value for emotional reasons and overprice it, every Realtor® and home buyer will know and look right over it!
How do you know you are overpriced? If your home has been listed for months and you’ve had little to no showings and the only living creatures coming to see your home are spiders and crickets, than your probably overpriced.
When listing your home, you generally want to list your home in the sweet spot. The sweet spot is anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 under market value. I know! Crazy right! The answer to selling your home for top dollar, is listing it for thousands of dollars less than the market value! :0 The reason that this method works is because when your home is introduced to the market, every Realtor and home buyer will immediately know that the home is priced below market value. This is going to cause an absolute frenzy and Realtors® are going to be lining their clients up to see your home. What this does is create an auction type setting. You will be receiving multiple offers and will find yourself in a multiple offer situation. Your listing agent (if a good one) will then send out a “Multiple Counter Offer” to each and every home buyer that presented an offer. This multiple counter offer will ask the buyers to make their final and best offer.
9 times out of 10 you are going to get a buyer that absolutely fell in love with the property, understands that this property is hot and the competition is there, and is going to offer a significant amount over not only your listing price, but over fair market value! BOOM!! That is how you sell your home fast and for top dollar!
