Interested in advice your buyers are receiving? Check out the previous post!
Do you shudder when you see some of the advice that’s given to people about to sell their homes? You’re not alone. A lot of the advice given to sellers would be laughable if it weren’t so damaging.
Fortunately, it’s not all bad. Some of the advice sellers get is actually helpful. Regardless, being a great seller’s agent means knowing what your prospects are being told and how to respond to common misconceptions, questions, and concerns.
To help you, here’s a list of common advice sellers are getting and how to be ready to respond.
“Depersonalize Your Home to Sell It Fast”
The Advice:
This practical advice is very helpful. It’s a big put-off to a buyer to come into a home where the walls are covered with the seller’s wedding photos or pictures of their kids. It makes it very hard for the buyer to imagine themselves there.
How to Respond:
You want to encourage sellers to follow this tip. If you’re having a hard time with sellers who want to keep everything they way they wanted it when they lived there, remind them that this is essentially no longer their home. It’s not about what they want anymore, it about what the new homeowner will want.
“Audit Your Agent’s Marketing Techniques”
The Advice:
The idea here is that a seller should look for a quality agent. As a result, sellers who receive this advice may ask a lot of questions about what, exactly, you do to market properties. It may mean that the seller will try to be very hands-on, but it may not.
How to Respond:
The best response to this is to use the prospect’s interest in your marketing to really set yourself apart with your expertise. Describe the various marketing techniques you use and why they’re effective. Whatever you do, don’t get caught unprepared to answer questions about marketing!
“Post a Video Love Letter About Your Home on YouTube”
The Advice:
This hilarious piece of advice tells sellers to get an inexpensive flip camera and walk through the home and neighborhood. Sellers are supposed to narrate what their family loved about the home and the neighborhood, sharing memories and favorite coffee shops.
How to Respond:
The problem with the advice is that buyers aren’t interested in the seller’s experience in the home, they want to imagine their own experience. Assure the homeowner that you will post high-quality photos and video of the home online, and that you will clearly describe the benefits of the home and neighborhood. Explain that you realize telling a story is important, but that it needs to be the buyer’s story.
“Make a Lot of Showing Times Available”
The Advice:
If a seller wants to sell their home quickly for a good price, they need to make it easy for prospective buyers to see the house. This advice tells sellers to make it easy for buyers and Realtors® to schedule a showing by not making the timeframes super restrictive, or their home may be skipped in favor of others.
How to Respond:
While this is generally good advice, as a Realtor® it’s important to make sure your client understands what it takes to have the home ready for a showing. When the seller is clear about how clean it needs to be, they’ll be able to decide how much notice they need before a showing. It’s vital that your client not just leave everything as it lays right before a showing!
“Underprice Your Home to Create a Bidding War”
The Advice:
The idea is that if the home is a great value, more people will be interested, which will increase the number of bids received. This can create a bidding war where the seller gets more than originally anticipated – maybe even more than the house was expected to be worth.
How to Respond:
This is terrible advice for a variety of reasons. First, underpricing a home sends a message to buyers that there must be something wrong with it. Or, they may realize that the seller is trying to create a bidding war, and avoid the drama by looking elsewhere.
Secondly, if a bidding war is created and the selling price is too high, it might not stand up under appraisal, which would nullify the deal and leave the seller worse off than they were before.
Essentially, there’s never a good reason to misprice a home. It’s not strategy, it’s just foolish.
“Do an FSBO to Maximize Your Profit”
The Advice:
This advice is fairly standard – save the commission of your Realtor® by putting the home on the market and “letting it sell itself.”
How to Respond:
Homes don’t sell themselves. Unfortunately, real estate agents seem to constantly be in the position of proving their value. Point out these facts:
- No one buys a home they don’t know about. Realtors® have the time and expertise to market a home correctly and get the best price in the shortest time.
- Realtors® can provide expert advice about staging, landscaping, pricing, and more that will help the home sell more quickly. A seller doing this on their own is shooting in the dark.
- The paperwork involved in properly financing and selling a home is complex and is a major headache to an inexperienced and busy homeowner. As a Realtor®, you know exactly how to do it right and include all of the needed provisions and conditions.
Are You Ready for Your Seller?
This is just a sampling of all of the advice a seller may receive before working with you. It pays to be aware of what people are being told so that you can respond appropriately – in fact, you can answer some objections in advance!
Use some of these pieces of advice as discussion points on your farming postcards. Ask the question, “Should you do X to sell your home?” and then discuss the answer on the postcard. We at Printerbees would be delighted to help you set up the design!
Potential sellers will be very interested in these postcards and will respect your expertise as you answer the exact questions they had in mind! It’s a great way to build rapport through print marketing.
What’s the craziest seller’s advice you’ve heard? Share in the comments!
Comments(1)