Tips for Sellers
You know what are the possitive aspects of your home, but a new prospective buyer, who is visiting your place only for a few minutes or hours will only see things from a critical angle, it is pure and simple buyer psychology, however, spending some time and money now, may help you fetch a better price and a quicker sale. Here are some tips for you to think through and follow as a seller.
1. Make a great first impression
Clean, well maintained and well kept homes sell the fastest, so when you have a scheduled showing, you must make sure that the house is clean, well painted and well organized.
2. Invest today, to get dividends tomorrow
Tidy the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen. If your woodwork is scuffed or the paint is fading, consider some minor touch-ups and redecorating. Real estate sellers can benefit from updating the hardware on kitchen cabinets, adding new slipcovers to sofas and keeping a vase of fresh flowers in the entryway. These are some of the simple touches that can go a long way. If you're worried about time, hire professional cleaners or painters to help get your house ready. Remember, prospects would rather see how great the real estate seller's home really looks than hear "how great it could look" with a little work and money spent.
3. Check faucets and bulbs
Dripping water rattles the nerves, discolors sinks and suggests faulty or worn-out plumbing. Burned-out bulbs or faulty wiring leave prospects in the dark. Don't let those problems detract from what's right with your home.
4. Closets & Drawers
Sticky Closets,Drawers & Cabinets is a big put off for most buyers, as much as you don't like them, no one does. Hire a professional to smoothen these out to have a smoother sales closure, it would not cost you a whole lot, trust our experience, this small investment today, will have a whole lot of possitive impact.
The better organized a closet, the larger it appears. Now's the time to box up those unwanted clothes and donate them to charity.
5. Safety
Real estate sellers learn to live with all kinds of self-set booby traps: roller blades on the stairs, festooned extension cords, slippery throw rugs and low-hanging overhead lights. Make your residence as safe as possible for visitors.
6. Make Space
Remember, potential buyers are looking for more than just comfortable living space. They're looking for storage space, too. Real estate sellers should make sure attics and basements are clean and free of unnecessary items.
7. Bathroom to Sparkle
Bathrooms sell homes, so let them shine. Check and repair damaged or unsightly chaulking in the tubs and showers. For added allure, real estate sellers should display the best towels, mats and shower curtains.
8. Bedrooms
Let the prospect buyers percieve waking up in the cozy comforts of your bedrooms. For a spacious look, get rid of excess furniture.
Colorful bedspreads and fresh curtains are a must if real estate sellers want buyers to be able to imagine relaxing there. In case you have a balcony along with the bedrooms, make sure that you have created a nice cozy sitting.
9. Daylight showing should reveal Airiness and cheer.
Let the sun shine in! Just before the showing, make sure that you pull back curtains and drapes so that prospects can see how bright and cheery the home is, unless you are in a place where it is too hot, in that case, you may decide to leave the curtains drawn.
10. Lighting at night
Turn on the excitement buy turning on all your lights - both inside and outside - when showing your home in the evening. Lights add color and warmth, and make prospects feel welcome.
11. Avoid crowded scenes when you plan showings
Potential buyers often feel like intruders when they enter a home filled with people. Rather than giving your house the attention it deserves, they're likely to hurry through the viewing, and ultimately not remember your real estate, considering the fact that a pottential buyer browses through number of homes before making up their mind. Real estate sellers should keep the guests present to a minimum at the time planned for showing.
12. Watch your pets
Dogs and cats are great companions, but not when real estate sellers are showing their homes. Pets have a talent for getting underfoot. So do everybody a favor: Keep the pets either tied up or at least out of the way.
13. Sounds & Smells
Music will never die. But it might kill a real estate transaction. When it's time for a real estate seller to show the home, it's time to play generic music if at all, something like Lounge music or instrumenal music and that too at a soft low volume. On the other hand, bad odour is a put off, we all agree to that, now a simple thing like a fragrance candle or a home fragrance spray, may help in creating a more soothing enviornment for the sale. A word of caution here is not to over do it.
14. Relax
It's best if you're not there when your home is being shown. However if that's not possible, be friendly - but it's not necessary to force conversation. Prospects want to view the home with minimal distraction from the real estate seller.
15. Don't apologize
No matter how humble your abode, never apologize for its shortcomings. If a prospect volunteers a derogatory comment about your home's appearance, let your experienced Agent handle the situation.
16. Keep a low profile.
Nobody knows a home better than the real estate seller. But your agent knows buyers - what they need and what they want. Your Agent will have an easier time articulating the virtues of your home if you stay in the background.
17. Price & Discussions
Pricing your property right is of utmost importance, there is a thin line between the Right and the Wrong price, in case you under value your property, the buyer thinks there has to be something wrong with the property, on the other hand if you price it too high, the buyers will have alternative properties to consider, in both the cases, your sale gets delayed. Ideally, When prospective buyers want to talk price, terms or other real estate matters, let them speak to an expert - your Sales agent. As the real estate seller and owner, you might feel tempted to weigh in, but chances are you will end up loosing a sale by either quoting too much or too little.
18. Help your agent
Share every little detail about your property both good and bad with your agent, remember, your agent is interested in selling your property, considering his fee only gets paid if he is successful. But if there are things that the agent is kept in dark about, there is always a chance of loosing a pottential sale. Keeping your agent updated on any developments on your property since the last showing helps the agent to emphasize where neccessary and browse through where neccessary, while showing around. Lets not forget, your agent is working for you and with you to make sure that you sell fast and at the best possible price.
19. Time is of essence
Please manage your time well, every body is busy these days, nobody likes to wait, so if you have scheduled a showing, please make sure that who ever is responsible to show the property is available.
20. Documents & Papers
It is a good idea to keep a clean set of property papers (photocopies) handy , (you could also have one set of papers given to the Agent after crossing them, which the agent can carry with him) at the time of showing, you never know what kind of prospective buyer is visiting you, there could be at times, buyers, who would like to take immediate call on the property if they like it. By having the papers ready with you, you are not missing out on a closing opportunity.
21. Surprises are not good.
Work out your numbers well, find out if there are any pre payment penalties levied by your mortgage company or bank, you must know what you would end up paying your banker by selling the property and closing the loan before time. This fee normally ranges from 2% to 4% depending on the organization that you have gone with and depending upon the negotiations at the time of creating the mortgage on the property. (Normally, the bankers would not charge a pre closure fee in case the new buyer decides to take over the loan from you.)
21. Last but not the least (Very Important)
One of the most important and cruisial things to do is to not to publisize too much about your property being on sale, Sign up with one responsible broker/agent and let him/her do all the work to avoid dealing with multiple agents and brokers. It is also infact, not a good idea to publisize too much and through too many brokers, for the following reasons:
- Multiple Brokers propose the property in Multiple ways, which may or may not depict the right image of your property and may or may not be commensurate to your goal.
- There could be one buyer for a property like yours, but multiple brokers start proposing your property to the same buyer, imagine what the buyer would be thinking, "This looks like a desperate sale" and now you can imagine what the buyer will end up doing. Here is what happens in the opposite scenario, you sign up with one Broker for sale of your property, and there is a buyer for the same, The buyer knows that if he has to get this property, he has to go through the specific broker, in the bargain, the buyer is already prepared for not much of negotiations and he knows that its here and now when he actually calls for a meeting.
- Documents going into too many hands is always a bad idea for real estate, specially considering the frauds that have happened in the past. Once you have a single agent, you can fix resonsibility, which you will never be able to do when you give your property to multiple agents.
- When you sign up with one responsible broker, you end up saving time, efforts and resources, considering the fact that you dont have to answer multiple broker calls and answer queries and show your property to multiple brokers and spend time on explaining each one of them what is good and what is not in your property.
- The one dedicated broker, will market your property in the best possible manner, considering that this property is for sale only with him, he knows that now the excercise is only to deliver results as for him the sale of the listing is already closed, so all his focus is on making sure that your property gets represented well and advertised in the right way in the right mediums.
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