5 Steps to Selling Your Home from CNN

The following article link had some basic tips on selling your home in the current real estate market. I thought I would provide the link here as it is always good for prospective sellers to review this kind of information to arm themselves with tips and tricks to help get their home sold.

From CNN, 5 Steps to a Quick Home Sale

Tip #1

Now, you really have to understand that the author is talking a ‘quick’ sale which would justify the comments in the first tip. Real estate and home values are local. You have to understand comparable pricing in your area to know what it would take to effect a quick home sale. And by quick and given the discounts mentioned in the article, we are talking two weeks or less.

Now, for those more patient and looking for a more reasonable value for the property and not in an urgent hurry, then pricing might start higher with the expectation that it could take some time to get a contract.

One comment: Whether you are selling a Scottsdale custom home or a Chandler home, nothing gets a Realtor more anxious than if the pricing brings in a buyer within 1-3 days and the seller didn’t deliberately price the property really low for a quick sale. This can mean that the property was underpriced and money is being left on the table.

Tip #2

Tip 2 has some great suggestions but there are certainly a lot more aspects to this to consider to improve curb appeal and interior appeal. But reminding people to think of this is a great idea.

Tip #3

The online aspects are very important. Most critically, the listing needs to be detailed, accurate, and communicated across all the local home search sites possible so that the most potential buyers (and Realtors) see it. Facebook and Twitter represent additional marketing tools but in some sense, these are more broad-based marketing than targeted marketing in my opinion and secondary to that above. Nonetheless, the more people who see your home for sale, the better.

Tip #4

Now, with regard to tip 4, there is another train of thought here. When I set up home searches for home buyers (I customize it based on exactly what they are looking for), I don’t put a range in pricing so much as I just include the maximum. This is for the fact that most buyers don’t typically search for homes based on wanting to spend $300,000 to $350,000. Most buyers, especially in this climate, are willing to spend ‘up to.’ However, if they could find what they are looking for at a lower price than their range, they would jump on it.

So, when pricing, if a homeowner is priced near $300,000, I would suggest a price of $299,999 versus $300,001 because the property will get noticed by more buyers who are looking up to $300,000 in addition to those looking above $300,000. It’s about visibility and the seller shouldn’t care if the buyer is at the top end of their range or the bottom so long as the buyer is a strong, viable, candidate for successfully closing on the property.

Tip #5

With regard to item 5, I like this as well. Speed is the advantage to a normal home seller as is relative simplicity of the deal as compared to foreclosures and certainly, short sales. So, I would highlight both aspects here - ”Normal sale - not a short sale or foreclosure. Ready to close.”

I have many other tips but honestly, I like to walk a property and point items out that I think we can change to improve on the home’s appeal. This is the best way to address what might need to be done. As well, I try to preempt what a buyer might think and what feedback we could expect to get so that my sellers aren’t surprised when we start hearing something that was likely to come up when I visited the property.

As well, one important aspect for sellers is that the tips above always apply, daily. A homeowner has to keep the house looking sharp at all times for a potential showing. It’s a lot of work but the potential impact is to reduce the time on market (assuming proper pricing and positioning), and a higher sales value.

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