To be successful in selling a home it requires a team effort. There are many members of the team. I am not talking about the whether the Realtor is a solo agent or part of a sales team within their company, when I refer to the team in this post I am talking a little bigger picture.
The team I am referring to is the team of all the people needed to make for a successful transaction. This list is not complete but has the players most often involved. This list is common for Hawaii. In other states the list may vary a little.
- The Realtors and their company support (representing both sides)
- The buyer
- The seller (yes the seller, they are one of the most important part of this process)
- The loan officer and lending institution
- The home inspector, termite inspector, surveyor
- The escrow company and officer
- Attorney, 1031 coordinator (if needed)
The rest of this post I want to focus on the seller and their important role in the process. The seller can either be a great asset or their own worst enemy.
Once the seller selects and Realtor, their next job is to follow the advice of their agent and get the home ready for sale. To be successful in selling your home for the highest price in the fewest number of days, you need to make the house show well and show often.
I have seen so many listings that I know immediately they will have a big problem. Here is a list of things the seller and their agent need to cover:
1) The home needs to be made ready for sale
- It needs to be clean; the kitchen and bathrooms should sparkle (they sell the home)
- The yard should be manicured
- Minor repairs taken care of
- Clutter removed, if you need to rent a storage locker and remove the extra stuff. Less is more. You home looks smaller if there is too much stuff in it.
- Depersonalize the home. Buyers need to be able to imagine what it will look like with their stuff in it.
- Paint as needed and replace bad carpet. (paint and carpet are cheap and will help sell the home faster at a higher price).
2) The home needs to be marketed correctly
- Advertising
- Open houses
- Signage
- Internet presence (MLS, virtual tours, website posts, etc.)
- Accessibility for showings. Lock box, flexible hours, etc.
- No special conditions on the sale.
- PRICE, I left this one last. It is part of marketing and a very important part. If the home is priced wrong you are in for a lot of pain and suffering. Under priced and you lose money. Over priced and you lose money and time.
I have had many clients who followed my advice completely and we sold their homes for more than the others in the neighborhood and got them in escrow in record time.
I have also seen many listings where the seller who made the home hard to show, not show well or just wasn't willing to price the home correctly. I have also seen an equal number of homes that the seller's agent did not do a job of marketing.
If the seller selects a good Realtor, who has the ability to put together a great marketing plan, (which includes a team of professionals) and follows their advice, success is imminent.
Good Luck and Good Selling!
Here are a few blog posts of similar topics:
- Building Professional Relationships
- What is Your Definition of Professional Behavior for a Real Estate Agent?
- Some Listings are Just Too Good to be True
- I Love Open Houses
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