4 Steps to List Your Home at its Best
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 others competing for buyers in your area! Use these four steps to help your home get noticed, win over buyers, and get a higher sales price!
STEP 1: SHOWCASE FULL POTENTIAL WITH HOME STAGING
Sellers do a lot of work to prepare their homes for market, such as:
Deep clean
Declutter
Fix anything that’s broken
Curb appeal, mow lawn, weed, shovel walkway, etc.
And while these tasks are essential, setting them apart from the others takes more. Home staging is one of the hottest trends in real estate because it works. The Real Estate Staging Association states that homes sell faster and for more money than homes that are not staged.
What does staging entail? In a broad sense, staging is the act of preparing your home with the goal of highlighting your home’s strengths, minimizing deficiencies, and helping buyers envision themselves living in the space. When staging a home, stagers might rearrange, reduce, or rent furniture to make a room feel larger or remove heavy curtains to make it brighter.
Some sellers choose to hire a professional home stager who has specialized training and experience to maximize the appeal of their home to the largest number of potential buyers. Others may opt to do it themselves, using guidance from their agent. Either way, it is necessary to consider, so I do supply a complimentary consult with a home stager to provide you with your options.
STEP 2: DRAW BUYERS IN WITH HIGH-QUALITY PHOTOS
You only have one chance to make a first impression! Almost all buyers view photos of a listing before they decide whether to view it in person. I will be onsite during the photo shoot to help the photographer capture the best, most unique, and compelling features of your home that they should capture.
STEP 3: PRICE IT PROPERLY FROM THE START
Even in a strong real estate market, some homes will sit for a time. This can be problematic in real estate, as buyers tend to imagine that something must be wrong with the property, even if it’s not the case. Why are those houses still on the market? Most likely because they are priced too high.
Every buyer has a budget, and most will view 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. This means it will sit on the market until, eventually, the price drops.
Alternatively, if you price aggressively, it can be among the nicest homes that buyers have seen within their budget. This can lead to attached buyers, who are often willing to pay a premium or settle for fewer seller concessions. And in certain markets, it can potentially lead to a multiple-offers situation. Pricing it properly, in the beginning, is the best way to ensure a fast and profitable sale, and I can help you determine the ideal listing price for your home, given current market conditions.
STEP 4: PUT ON A GOOD SHOW AT EACH VIEWING
Once buyers are interested enough to schedule a visit, it’s crucial that you put on a good show at each viewing. Make your home readily available for buyers to see it—and be prepared; it might often be on short notice. A missed showing is a missed opportunity to sell your home. If there are too many restrictions on availability, busy buyers might skip over your listing and move on to the next one.
Part of making your home available means keeping it relatively show-ready. Most homes reflect the day-to-day reality of our busy lives and families. However, a little extra effort spent keeping your home clean, tidy, and smelling fresh - ready for buyers, will help it sell faster…which has you back to your regular routines as quickly as possible!
Are you thinking about listing your home? Get a head start and contact me for a copy of my Home Seller’s Guide, which offers a complete guide to the home selling process, or you can call today to schedule a free, no-commitment consultation by zoom or in-person; I would love to chat!
