7 Ways to Make Your Home Competitive - And Not Just to Buyers!
We sometimes need to be reminded of ways to get a home sold. Especially in a slower market. This is great information to remember and that is the reason I chose to re-blog it. Thanks for allowing me to share this with my friends. Good luck and good selling.
When your home is for sale, it becomes more than your home. It's a commodity that has to compete with other homes in the complex real estate market place. How can you make your home it's most competitive? Well, you do the obvious to make buyers want it - have it looking great, no bad kitty litter boxes, and a reasonable price tag. But you also have to make it competitive from the vantage point of the buyers' agents, or the buyers who would love the place may never see it.
You want to make your home the one every agent with a buyer in your price range wants to show. You want agents, not only to show it, but to want your house to be the one their clients choose. How to do this?
- Make your home easy to show. If you only let people in on Wednesday at noon when the moon is full, that doesn't work for agents, even if they have buyers for your home.
- Send Fang the leg humping Great Dane to Doggy Day Care during showings.
- Don't stick around during showings to make sure the buyer's agent doesn't miss something.
- Have your agent show you the MLS listing and virtual tour photos. The buyer's agent will select the homes she will show based on this, so make sure the photos look great and that the description is a combination of enticing and accurate.
- List with an agent who plays well with others - avoid agents who have nothing nice to say about their colleagues. Chances are the feeling are mutual. You don't want other Realtors avoiding your house because your agent is a pill
- When your agent does a weekend open house, make her promise that she will honor any relationships that visiting buyers have with other agents.
- The brokerage fees, both yours and the buyers', are usually paid from your proceeds at settlement. If you agent is charging you a greatly reduced fee, she may be offering the buyer's agents a lot less than they would receive from the full-service brokerage that's listing the home down the street. Many discount and limited service listing agents do offer a full fee to their colleagues, but others do not.
If you want to sell your home for top dollar in a reasonable amount of time, it's important maximize its exposure to the marketplace. And this means appealing to both buyers and the agents who are advising them on which are the great places to see.
If you are planning to move to or from the Washington, DC metropolitan area, contact me before you make any real estate decisions. Call or text (202-549-5167) or send an email to housepat@mac.com.
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