Top 10 Ways to Make Home Buyers Hate Your House
Selling a Home? Avoid these Home Buyer Turnoffs
Are you selling a home? Did you know that even though home buyers are all looking for something different, the majority of them will turn around and walk back out of your door if they notice one or more of these Top 10 problems..
Make the Most of Curb Appeal!
Most buyers choose to drive by your home first before wanting to set an appointment to view. An attractive yard that is free of debris will gain interest quickly. Make sure that trees are trimmed and that your home can be seen from the street. Have the grass mowed, trimmed and edged. Walkways should be swept. Clean away all debris. Remove parked cars or RVs. When in season plant flowers to add color.
Remember, if the buyer does not like the outside, that person simply drives on to the next house. Get your home ready for drive by traffic and give folks something extra nice to look at.
Call us today for a no-nonsense, no obligation assessment of your homes value and let me show you the key factors in obtaining a top dollar sale on your home! We would definitely like to help you in any way we can! More information on how to improve your home curb appeal can be found right here.
Representing Your Best Interest
In today's real estate market it is more important than ever to have a professional who truly represents your best interest. A qualified listing agent works for you -- the home seller.
Here are some things to consider when hiring an agent:
- The offer is typically written by an agent who represents the buyer's best interests.
- Your listing agent will represent you, the home seller, as your exclusive sellers agent.
- Your listing agent will carefully go through the entire offer with you and furnish you with expert guidance and counseling. Your listing agent will help you put together a response that will give you the highest possible price for your home and do everything possible to protect you from liability.
Remember, you are depending on your listing agent to represent your best interests at all times and to be a strong negotiator on your behalf. Good guidance here can also make the entire transaction go more smoothly and greatly decrease the chances of litigation.
Staging Your Home To Sell!
Home staging is about illusions. It's how David Copperfield would sell a house. It's beyond decorating and cleaning. It's about perfecting the art of creating moods. Staging makes your house look bigger, brighter, cleaner, warmer, more loving and, best of all, it makes home buyers want to buy it.
Contrary to what you might think, it's about more than preparing the house for sale. Staging is what you do after you've cleaned, decluttered, painted, made minor repairs; it's all about dressing the house for sale.
The greatest way to show a home is to have a key available. This is typically done by placing it in a secure lock box, provided to you by your Real Estate Professional. This will give agents, with prospective buyers easy access to your property and promote showings. Following these simple staging guidelines will also help:
- Keep all lights on, even on the sunniest of days
- Keep all draperies and shutters open
- Leave soft music playing at a low level
- Take a short walk or drive with your children and pets
- Let the Realtor and clients view the home without your presence
- Burn a scented candle to add a pleasant aroma to your home
- Let the buyer be at ease and let the agents do their job
By employing these successful staging strategies with an aggressive marketing plan, we can achieve a maximum sales price in the shortest number of days. Please contact me if there is anything I can help you get your home ready to sell. More information on home staging here.
The Worst Home Selling Mistake
But We Want More Money
When the average seller sits down to interview real estate agents, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement over choosing a sales price. More money means more financial opportunities for the homeowner. Perhaps it means the seller can afford to buy a more expensive home, help pay for her child's college education or take that greatly overdue vacation. Unfortunately, uninformed sellers often choose the listing agent who suggests the highest list price, which is the worst mistake a seller can make.
Establishing Value
The truth is it doesn't really matter how much money you think your home is worth. Nor does it matter what your agent thinks or ten other agents just like her. The person whose opinion matters is the buyer who makes an offer. Pricing homes is part art and part science. It involves comparing similar properties, making adjustments for the differences among them, tracking market movements and taking stock of present inventory, all in an attempt to come up with a range of value, an educated opinion. This method is the same way an appraiser evaluates a home. And no two appraisals are ever exactly the same; however, they are generally close to each other. In other words, there is no hard and fast price tag to slap on your home. It's only an educated guess and the market will dictate the price.
Is it Too Low?
Homes sell at a price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. If a home is priced too low, priced under the competition, the seller should receive multiple offers to drive up the price to market value. So there is little danger in pricing a home too low. The danger lies in pricing it too high and selecting your agent solely on opinion of value.
How It Starts To Go Wrong
The seller of the Spanish home pictured on this page didn't even interview her real estate agents. She plucked the first one off the Internet because, "He looked like such a nice guy." He priced her home at $1.3 million. This agent never heard the local agents chuckling behind his back because he worked in a different city. After 90 days, the listing expired.
Continues To Go Wrong
The next agent, also from another town, listed the home at $1.1 million. Months passed. Eventually the price dropped to just under $900,000. Still no takers. A few lookie-loos, but no serious buyers.
More Than a Year Later
By the time the last agent was hired to list this home, the seller had grown weary and exhausted. It was now 12 months later. Together, the seller and her agent priced the home at $695,000. It immediately sold for all cash. The sad part is the comparable sales in the neighborhood fully justified a price of $835,000, but the home had been on the market for too long at the wrong price, and now the market had softened.
Protect Yourself
The question is how much money have those expired listings cost the sellers? The financial loss often exceeds the extra mortgage payments paid and goes beyond the uncompensated hassle factor of trying to keep a home spotless during showings. It affects the value that a buyer ultimately chooses to pay because it's not a fresh listing anymore. It's now stale, dated, a market-worn home that was overpriced for too long. Don't let it happen to you. Don't be that seller of an expired listing.
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Top 10 Reasons to Hire a Realtor
With so much information readily available online, clients sometimes ask me, "Why should we hire a real estate agent?" They wonder, and rightfully so, if they couldn't buy or sell a home through the Internet or through regular marketing and advertising channels without representation, without a a real estate agent. Some do OK, many don't. So if you've wondered the same thing, here are 10 reasons why you might want to consider hiring a professional real estate agent.
1. Education & Experience
You don't need to know everything about buying and selling real estate if you hire a real estate professional who does. Henry Ford once said that when you hire people who are smarter than you are, it proves you are smarter than they are. The trick is to find the right person. For the most part, they all cost about the same. Why not hire a person with more education and experience than you? We're all looking for more precious time in our lives, and hiring pros gives us that time.
2. Agents are Buffers
Agents take the spam out of your property showings and visits. If you're a buyer of new homes, your agent will whip out her sword and keep the builder's agents at bay, preventing them from biting or nipping at your heels. If you're a seller, your agent will filter all those phone calls that lead to nowhere from lookie loos and try to induce serious buyers to immediately write an offer.
3. Neighborhood Knowledge
Agents either possess intimate knowledge or they know where to find the industry buzz about your neighborhood. They can identify comparable sales and hand these facts to you, in addition to pointing you in the direction where you can find more data on schools, crime or demographics. For example, you may know that a home down the street was on the market for $350,000, but an agent will know it had upgrades and sold at $285,000 after 65 days on the market and after twice falling out of escrow.
4. Price Guidance
Contrary to what some people believe, agents do not select prices for sellers or buyers. However, an agent will help to guide clients to make the right choices for themselves. If a listing is at 6%, for example, an agent has a 6% vested interest in the sale, but the client has a 94% interest. Selling agents will ask buyers to weigh all the data supplied to them and to choose a price. Then based on market supply, demand and the conditions, the agent will devise a negotiation strategy.
5. Market Conditions Information
Real estate agents can disclose market conditions, which will govern your selling or buying process. Many factors determine how you will proceed. Data such as the average per square foot cost of similar homes, median and average sales prices, average days on market and ratios of list-to-sold prices, among other criteria, will have a huge bearing on what you ultimately decide to do.
6. Professional Networking
Real estate agents network with other professionals, many of whom provide services that you will need to buy or sell. Due to legal liability, many agents will hesitate to recommend a certain individual or company over another, but they do know which vendors have a reputation for efficiency, competency and competitive pricing. Agents can, however, give you a list of references with whom they have worked and provide background information to help you make a wise selection.
7. Negotiation Skills & Confidentiality
Top producing agents negotiate well because, unlike most buyers and sellers, they can remove themselves from the emotional aspects of the transaction and because they are skilled. It's part of their job description. Good agents are not messengers, delivering buyer's offers to sellers and vice versa. They are professionals who are trained to present their client's case in the best light and agree to hold client information confidential from competing interests.
8. Handling Volumes of Paperwork
One-page deposit receipts were prevalent in the early 1970s. Today's purchase agreements run 10 pages or more. That does not include the federal- and state-mandated disclosures nor disclosures dictated by local custom. Most real estate files average thicknesses from one to three inches of paper. One tiny mistake or omission could land you in court or cost you thousands. In some states, lawyers handle the disclosures, thank goodness!
9. Answer Questions After Closing
Even the smoothest transactions that close without complications can come back to haunt. For example, taxing authorities that collect property tax assessments, doc stamps or transfer tax can fall months behind and mix up invoices, but one call to your agent can straighten out the confusion. Many questions can pop up that were overlooked in the excitement of closing. Good agents stand by ready to assist. Worthy and honest agents don't leave you in the dust to fend for yourself.
10. Develop Relationships for Future Business
The basis for an agent's success and continued career in real estate is referrals. Few agents would survive if their livelihood was dependent on consistently drumming up new business. This emphasis gives agents strong incentives to make certain clients are happy and satisfied. It also means that an agent who stays in the business will be there for you when you need to hire an agent again. Many will periodically mail market updates to you to keep you informed and to stay in touch.
Pricing Your Home to Sell
Did you know the best chance for selling your property is within the first seven weeks?
It's true.
Studies show that the longer a property stays on the market, the less the seller will net upon the sale. It is very important to price your property at a competitive market value at the signing of your listing contract. The market is so competitive that even over-pricing by a few thousand dollars could mean that your house will not sell.
An Overpriced Home:
· Minimizes offers
· Lowers agents response
· Limits qualified buyers
· Lowers showings
· Lowers prospects
· Limits financing
· Wastes advertising dollars
· Nets less for the seller
When you are ready, contact me today for a personal market value analysis of your home. No hassles or obligation - just honest advice on how to get top dollar for your home!
A Little Painting Works Wonders
New paint makes the entire home smell clean and neat, and can bring sellers top dollar. If your home has chipped paint, exposed wood, or surfaces that looks faded, it's time for new paint. If your carpet is worn, dirty, outdated, or an unusual color or style, you might consider replacing it.
Many houses do not sell because of these problems. Don't think that buyers have more money than you to freshen up a home. They typically don't. They will simply look elsewhere for a home that needs less work.
Please let me know when you are ready to sell and I can help you prepare your home for today's market.
Making Your Home Shine
It's a common fact that clean homes net more money. Most people are turned off by even the smallest amount of uncleanness or odor when looking at homes to purchase. Sellers lose thousands of dollars because they do not adequately clean their homes or rid them of offensive odors.
If your home is squeaky clean, you will be able to sell your home faster and net more money.
If you are planning on moving, why not get rid of that old junk now so that your house will actually appear larger? Make more space. Odors must be eliminated, especially if you have pets, young children in diapers, or a smoker in the house. A little work now can pay huge dividends at closing!
Home Inspections and Disclosures
Almost every home buyer will get a home inspection before committing to buy your home. You can help the process move more smoothly by preparing for the home inspector and making minor repairs beforehand. No home is perfect, not even new homes; however, buyers may offer less for a home if major defects are discovered.
Some local governments require that the seller provide the buyer with a detailed home inspection while giving the buyer the option to obtain her own inspection. In other parts of the country, the seller provides only disclosures and the buyer pays for her own home inspection. Whether you're producing a seller's home inspection for the buyer or expecting the buyer's home inspector to show up on your doorsteps, it's best to be thoroughly prepared.
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