How to Sell Your Home in this Kansas City Real Estate Market - 5 Tips

 How to Sell Your Home in this Kansas City Real Estate Market - 5 Tips

Kansas City Homeowners want to know, “How Will You Sell My Home?”

That’s a tough question for many Kansas City real estate agents, but important for homeowners to get an answer to. I want to answer the questions specifically from my point of view as an agent of over 25 years with a Missouri Brokers license and Kansas Salesperson license. I will share 5 tips to consider while carefully selecting the best real estate agent to hire to sell your home. Being a real estate agent is like being an owner of a business in many ways. We are entrepreneurial independent contractors who are paid on 100% commission. Basically, if we don’t close real estate transactions, we don’t get paid. We are responsible for our expenses, supplies, marketing and gas for our cars. These days in our tough Kansas City real estate market (see my Market Reports for various areas, or request one from me for your neighborhood), we need to do more than just simply put the listing into the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to share with other agents, create a basic flyer and host an Open House or two. Simple and generic is not enough anymore.

We must be experts in Marketing, Psychology, Communications and Project Management with access to experts in finance and mortgage lending as well as ownership and title issues. Outside of ourselves, we manage a team which also includes other agents in our market. They could be bringing the buyer to our transaction, so your agent's positive relationships and a good reputation are critical when selecting an agent. We must also make it our ultimate responsibility to make sure everyone does what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it - whether it's our job or not. My goal is a stress-free transaction for my clients.

Personally, I am lucky that my formal education prepared me well to manage my real estate business. I earned Dual Masters Degree in Marketing and Management, and from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), a B.A. degree in Psychology with a minor in Communication Studies. The study of human behavior, communications and consumers has been key for me, and great for my clients. I take this business seriously as a true business. Many of my clients have their largest financial asset in the equity of their homes, and they need someone serious to manage it so that they can get their well deserved check at closing.

Here are 5 important things to consider when selecting the Kansas City real estate agent to sell your home:

     1. Review their resume. It should show a well rounded reflection of their business life which includes general education and real estate educational designations (reflects their dedication to continuous learning in our industry). It’s also good to see that they’ve volunteered time to make their/your community a better place to live. (Putting their money where their mouth is, as the saying goes). 

     2. Get letters of reference/recommendations from past clients. If they took their time to put it in writing, the customer service experience had to be pretty good for their clients. Watch for common phrases that paint a picture of the agent. (For example, many of my clients cite my exceptional customer service that I strive for-thankfully, my frequent and open communication style and my positivity). I even share wonderful comments from other agents who have worked with me.

     3.     Ask for a few samples of their marketing pieces – geared to agents and potential buyers. Are they unique, attractive and interesting, or are they simply relying only on standard company marketing pieces? Do the materials accurately reflect what's best about your home & neighborhood? Put yourself in the place of a buyer.

     4.     Make sure you get a detailed written Marketing Plan geared specifically for your home, nothing generic for this new market that we are in. The plan should include mediums where they will market your home specifically. This should also include their social media plan. Simply saying that they will put it on Facebook is not good enough. For example, I’m lucky because I am very active on several social media sites, and have a good understanding about how to use it to increase our reach. I know that through all of my aggressive marketing efforts - I call it my “Stacey’s Web 2.0 Marketing Plan”, your home will be exposed to every potential buyer for who is looking for a home like yours. Your home will be everywhere that the buyers are. That is critical in this competitive buyer's market since your home must stand out.

     5.     Review your Market Analysis that the agent prepares. This is important because it will give you the big picture of real estate trends in your area. It will also give you specific prices of similar homes in your neighborhood that are currently on the market for sale – your competition, homes that failed to sell, and most importantly, homes that have sold. This Market Analysis is important because it tells you (and the appraiser), what buyers are actually willing to pay to live in your neighborhood in a house like your home.

Simply by carefully selecting & hiring a real estate agent who is aggressive with marketing, familiar with the community as a whole, has a solid reputation with their peers in the real estate industry, and treats their real estate practice as a business – you increase your chances of successfully selling your home. If you live in the Kansas City metropolitan area and want to connect with me, I’d love to visit with you.

My next blog posts will be a series addressing the actual home selling process -including how to find buyers. Please subscribe to my blog to follow, or email or call me.