Five Secrets To A Fast Sale

Most people are aware of the standard procedure when selling a home. All Real Estate Professionals will tell you to:

- Make sure your home is clean

- Make sure your home is uncluttered

- Remove personal photos and belongings

- Make your decor “neutral” to appeal to as many buyers as possible

- Have open houses to attract buyers

- Price your home attractively

However, what about other things that you can do to make sure your home sells? Here are some industry secrets that some sellers and buyers might not know about.

Negotiate commission with your agent or sell your home privately:

The standard agent commission is 5%, however, many agents now offer their services for less. Depending on the price of your home, you should be able to obtain a quality agent for 3% or 3.5%. This includes 0.5% or 1% for your listing agent and 2.5% for the co-operating agent. You can also sell your home without using a real estate agent by advertising on propertysold.ca. If you are selling privately, it might still be wise to offer 2.5% to an agent to bring a buyer (or whatever amount you are comfortable offering). However, the secret with reducing your costs is to make sure that you use this savings to entice buyers. In a slowing real estate market, you want to make sure you are priced lower than other similar homes (paying 5%) and thus, your home will certainly be visited by all the buyers and you have a better chance of selling quickly.

Good pricing creates buyers and leads to bidding wars:

The idea of bidding wars can frustrate buyers and makes some people upset. But the facts of selling a home are that you want as many buyers competing for your home in order to get the best price and sell quickly. Buyers tend to visit homes that are just above their budget, but they don’t visit homes that are way out of their range. When you price your home fairly (lower than similar homes), what happens is that you attract buyer who would need to “stretch” in order to buy your home. These buyers are often the ones who end up buying your home. However, had you priced your home higher, these buyers would simply not have bothered to visit your home. By pricing your home competitively, you have attracted the maximum number of buyers. This leads to more offers and a quick sale.

Create a buzz and make an offer date:

If you are priced fairly, then you can choose to create a date for offers. This can work to put pressure on buyers to make a decision. If your home is a great deal, then tell all buyers that you are accepting offers on a single date. A good plan is to put your home on the market on a Wednesday, schedule two open houses (on the weekend and during the week) and then say that you are accepting offers on the following weekend. This means that your home is on the market for 7-10 days. Just enough time for all buyers to see it and make a decision. One risk is that your home does not have any offers on offer day. That just means that you keep your home for sale. No big problem. If you were priced fairly and didn’t sell, it might indicate a slow market or that you should review your price again.

Whatever you do, do it professionally:

Whether you are using an agent or selling privately, make sure it is done professionally. From your lawn sign to your brochures, make sure that they look great. Buyers don’t like to buy products, services, homes, or anything else that are not professional. Some agents have old signs, and print black and white feature sheets. Some private sellers have a cheap lawn signs and no feature sheets. These do not help the sale. Of course buyers are buying the home and not the lawn sign or brochure, but it does make a difference. Why do people buy Apple products even though they are more expensive and don’t work with a lot of other products? Because they look great! Professional! The same goes for renovations. If you have the choice of renovating one part of your home really well, or the entire home poorly, then do one thing really well.

PropertySold example: We recently had a propertysold.ca customer sell in 5 days. He followed the tips above. He had a home which was professionally finished and he priced it the same as a similar MLS home. He had a great product, priced well, created a buzz and sold in 5 days (for the most ever on his street)!