While we all want to be good neighbors, serious home sellers must do more. It’s not just about keeping up with the Joneses or pleasing your neighbors. It’s about outshining them at every opportunity!
If you are serious about selling your home fast and at the highest possible price, you’ll need a strategy to set it apart from all the other listings competing for buyers in your area. Implement our simple five step plan to create the competitive edge you seek!
STEP 1 For Serious Home Sellers Only: Stage To Maximize Value
The average seller will do the minimum to prepare their home to list, but serious home sellers take the action needed. For example, they may clean and declutter, fix anything that’s broken, mow the lawn and consider their home ready. However, while these tasks are essential, today’s buyers want more than just a clean house and tidy yard. When they envision their dream home, they dream of designer touches and modern finishes. Help them see your property’s full potential by staging it.
Staging translates into dollars at closing! Additionally, according to the Real Estate Staging Association, homes that are professionally staged spend 73% less time on the market.1
Staging Defined
So what exactly is staging? In a broad sense, it is the process of preparing your home to make a great first impression. At each step, you strive to highlight your home’s strengths, minimize any deficiencies, and help buyers envision themselves living in the space. For example, you may choose to rearrange the furniture to make each room appear more spacious, or remove heavy curtains to make each appear brighter.
While staging is about actions that enhance your home’s “wow” factor, not about who takes those actions, don’t be shy about seeking the advice of a pro. Professional home stagers have specialized training and experience. Therefore, they can help you to maximize your home’s value, and their services often translate to as much as six times their fees in terms of added dollars at closing.
We can guide you as you develop a staging plan and put you in touch with a staging professional if you choose to go that route. If you are not yet convinced that staging is not an option, but rather a necessity, consider this. A 2018 survey found that 85% of staged homes sold for up to 25% more than their unstaged competition.2
STEP 2: Draw Buyers in with High-Quality Listing Photos
You only have one chance to make a first impression with potential buyers and most start forming their impression through online photos. In fact, 87% of buyers find photos “very useful” in their home search.3 To be sure, amateurish photos may keep many buyers from ever stepping through your door.
Since top notch photography plays such an important role in bringing buyers to your door, we only work with the top local professionals to photograph our listings. To ensure your listing photos showcase the true essence of your home, our photographers capture the best angles and lighting to highlight unique or compelling selling features that set your home apart. Their extra efforts pay off since listings that feature high-quality photography sell 32% faster than the competition and often at higher prices!4
STEP 3: Price It Properly From the Start
Even in a strong real estate market, there are homes that will sit unsold for months on end. This can be a self perpetuating problem because the longer a home sits on the market, the more sellers wonder whether there is something wrong they are not aware of. Of course, that often results in frustration and eventually may translate into a lower than expected selling price. The most common reason that a home faces this downward spiral is that it was listed at an unrealistic price to start.
Today’s home buyers research homes on the internet and work with Realtors. Therefore, they quickly become informed as to what homes are competing with yours. Since they are informed, they understand their choices and shy away from overpriced properties. So by overpricing your home you are driving away qualified buyers. Alternatively, if you price your home aggressively, you attract buyers. As a result, you give your home and its appealing features the opportunity to sell themselves at showings.
Of course, that often translates into higher offers, quicker closings and even multiple offers and bidding wars. Therefore, pricing your home reasonably from the start is the best way to ensure a fast and profitable sale. As N.A.R. certified Pricing Strategy Advisors, we can help you to price your home to sell quickly without minimizing the risk of leaving cash on the table at closing.
STEP 4: Finally, It’s Showtime!
As your home begins to draw prospective buyers it’s crucial that you put on a good show at each showing.
The first step is to make your home available. Remember that every missed showing is a missed opportunity to sell your home. If you set too many restrictions on when it’s available to view, busy buyers will simply skip your home and move on to others. Additionally, an important aspect of making your home available is keeping it in listing condition. Most of us don’t live in models.
But you’ve made the effort to stage your home. In order to reap the benefits, you must now make the effort to keep your home clean, fresh-smelling, and ready for buyers. Finally, whenever possible, turn on every light in the house. A bright home is more appealing. Taking these steps will help you sell your home faster and allow you to enjoy the new lifestyle you crave sooner.
STEP 5: Serious Home Sellers Rely On A Proven Promotion Plan
Most agents still market their listings like they did 20 years ago. They put a sign in the yard, put the listing in the MLS and pray that it sells. Yet we know that 93% of buyers search for real estate listings online.3 That is why Ocala Home Guide Realty invests in the latest technology and maintains a high profile on the internet.
As a result, we draw thousands of local buyers to our website and social media pages every month. Then we expose homes we list to our visitors, thousands of others through a digital marketing campaign, and local Realtors. In short, we do our best to expose each home we list to thousands of potential buyers.
Are You Serious Home Sellers? Then Lets Get Started!
Are you thinking about listing your home? Are you one of our serious sellers? Get a jump on your competition! Request a copy of our serious Home Sellers Guide, loaded with information you’ll need to know. Call us to schedule a free, no-commitment consultation. We would love to work with you to make your dream lifestyle a reality!!
“If you don’t like where you are, move. Unlike a tree, you can pull up roots, find the lifestyle you crave and put them down again.” – Paraphrasing Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker
Set your sites on what you want to achieve in life and listen only to your heart. Ignore the nay sayers. For only if you shoot for the stars can you hope to reach the moon! Only serious home sellers let nothing stand in the way of attaining their dream lifestyle.
Andrew Kruglanski, MBA, ABD, Broker
(352)234-3048
andy.k@ocalahomes.online
Sources:
- Real Estate Staging Association – https://www.realestatestagingassociation.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=304550&module_id=164548
- Home Staging Resources –
https://www.homestagingresources.com/2018-home-staging-statistics/ - National Association of Realtors –
https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2018-real-estate-in-a-digital-world-12-12-2018.pdf - RIS Media –
https://rismedia.com/2018/12/12/shocking-stats-importance-photography-real-estate/