Are you thinking of selling your home?
Here are some key factors you want to consider:
Pricing Your Home
There are several factors that contribute to the successful sell of a home. The first one, and the most obvious is the price. Pricing a home properly is probably the single most important factor in the entire process. When people start looking for a home to buy, over 90% of them will begin searching on the Internet. If they are approved for a home priced up to $300,000, they will set their search limit to a maximum of $300,000. Let’s say your home is worth $295,000. Let’s also assume that you have decided to see if you can get $305,000 for it. If you leave your home at the higher price you may be missing potential buyers that are capping their search at $300,000.
Serious buyers will gather a list of homes in their price range and make a selection from them. If your home is priced wrong, you may not even be included on their list. Another important factor to consider when overpricing your home, is the appraisal. If you home is really only worth $295,000 and you wait for and accept an offer of $305,000 it could cost you dearly. There is a chance that you may find yourself re-negotiating a deal that has taken you several months to work through. In reality you may even need to drop below $295,000 to keep the buyer you have been working with rather than put it back on the market.
Location
Location is a topic that has pretty well been beaten to death, it is still an important factor in a home buyers decision. There is really not much you can do about the location of your home, so there is really not much to be said about this part of the home selling process.
Condition
Condition on the other hand is something that a home owner can totally control. From the curb appeal necessary to get a person in the door, down to the carpet, the condition of the home can be changed. Some people believe that a buyer would rather be given a carpet allowance than have new carpet already in place. This has been proven wrong by most successful real estate agents. The truth is, unless you are selling a multi million dollar house, most people would much rather have new carpet and paint than be given an allowance for it. It is also the belief of most agents that the return for the installed carpet and fresh paint exceeds what the home seller will actually spend. In many cases cleaning up de-cluttering, and staging, are some of the least expensive things you can do to sell your home.
Financing and Market Conditions
Other factors that a home seller has no control of are the financing available to the person interested in buying their home and the current market conditions. If interest rates are up, the pool of potential home buyers shrinks. If market conditions change the home seller is helpless until conditions turn around. Market conditions are usually local, but are definitely part of the overall economic health of the country.
Marketing
When selling your home it is important to understand that Marketing is the only item on our list that a listing real estate agent can control. The marketing efforts he or she makes to sell your home, including giving it the necessary exposure are what we bring to the table. In my opinion ERA is the best at providing the maximum mount of exposure for our clients. Here is a list of some of the tools we can help you with.
All of our listings include the following:
– Listed on Craigslist
– Listed on KSL.com
– A video is created of the property
– A full color brochure is created for your home
– Listed on the MLS to over 900 agents and their websites
– Free Home Warranty when using our preferred lender
– Instant notification when someone is interested in your house to our cell phones
– Gold Star property distinction
– ERA Seller’s Security Plan
– Exposure on all of the places listed below
This blog post was shared by Kevin Richey.
View Kevin’s website HERE.