27 Tips To Get Your Home Sold Fast And For Top Dollar

Because your home may well be your largest asset, selling it is probably one of the most important decisions of your life. To better understand the home selling process, we have prepared this guide from industry insider reports. Through these 27 tips you will discover how to protect and capitalize on your investment, reduce stress, stay in control and make the most profit possible.

Understand Why You Are Selling Your motivation to sell is the key factor in how you approach the process. It affects everything from your asking price to how much time, money and effort you’ll invest to prepare your home for sale.

Keep Your Reasons To Yourself The reason you’re selling will affect the way you ne-gotiate. By keeping this to yourself you won’t be providing ammunition to your buyers. For example, if they learn you need to move quickly, a buyer could low-ball an offer. To avoid this, simply tell prospects your housing needs have changed.

Before Setting A Price, Do Your Homework When you set your price, you’re telling buyers the most they’ll have to pay for your house. As a seller, you want to get as close to the list price as possible. If you start out pricing too high you run the risk of not being taken seriously; conversely pricing too low simply assures you of less than you could get.

Setting Your Home’s Sale Price If you live in a sub-division: If your area is made up of similar floor plans, built in the same period, simply look at recent sales in the neighborhood to give you a good idea of what your home is worth. If you live in an older neighborhood: Neighborhoods change over time, and every home becomes differ-ent. Because of this you will probably find that there aren’t many homes truly comparable to your own. In this case you’ll want to consider seeking a Realtor®

to help you with the selling price. If you decide to sell on your own: A good way to es-tablish a value is to look at homes that have sold in your neighborhood within the last six months. But be sure to include those now on the market. These are your competitors. This is how prospective buy-ers will assess the worth of your home. Much of this information is available through real estate related web sites.

Do Some Home Shopping Yourself The best way to learn about your competition and

discover what turns buyers off is to check out other open houses. Note floor plans, condition, appear-ance, size of lot, location and other features. Note not only the asking price, but what the homes are actually selling for. Remember, if you’re serious about getting your home sold fast, don’t price it higher than your neighbor’s.

When Getting An Appraisal Is A Benefit Sometimes a good appraisal can be a benefit in mar-keting your home. An appraisal lets prospective buy-ers know that your home can be financed. However, appraisals do cost money, have a limited life, and there’s no guarantee you’ll like the number.

Tax Assessments -- What They Really Mean Some people think that tax assessments are a way of evaluating a home. The difficulty here is that assess-ments are based on a number of criteria that may not be related to property values, so they may not necessarily reflect your home’s true worth in the market.

Deciding Upon A Realtor® According to a National Association of Realtors® sur-vey, nearly two-thirds of the people who sold their own homes would not do it again. Primary reasons included setting a price, marketing handicaps, liabil-ity concerns and time constraints. When deciding upon a Realtor,® consider two or three. Be wary of selling price quotes that are too low as well as those that are too high. All Realtors® are not the same! A professional Real-tor® knows the market and has information on past sales, current listings, a marketing plan and will pro-vide their background and references. Evaluate each candidate on the basis of their experience, qualifica-tions, enthusiasm and personality. Be sure you choose one you’ll trust and feel confident in. For more on this subject, request our free brochure entitled “About Hiring An Agent.”

Ensure You Have Room To Negotiate Before settling on your asking price, make sure you leave yourself enough room to bargain. For exam-ple, set your lowest and highest selling price. Then

check your priorities to know if you should price high to maximize your profit or price closer to market val-ue to speed your sale. And remember, you’ll only profit if your home sells. Don’t be greedy. It can ac-tually cost you money.

Appearances Matter -- Make Them Count! Appearance is so critical that it would be unwise to ignore this when selling your home. The look and feel of your home will generate a greater emotional response than any other factor. Prospective buyers react to what they see, hear, feel and smell even though you may have priced your home to sell.

Invite The Honest Opinion Of Others The biggest mistake you can make at this point is to rely solely on your own judgment. Don't be shy about seeking the honest opinions of others. You need to be objective about your home’s good points as well as bad. Fortunately, your Realtor® will be un-abashed about discussing what should be done to make your home more marketable.

Clean It, Fix It, Paint It Scrub, scour, tidy up, straighten, get rid of the clutter, declare war on dust, repair squeaks, the light switch that doesn’t work, and the tiny crack in the bathroom mirror because these can be deal killers and you’ll never know what turns buyers off. Re-member, you’re not just competing with other re-sale homes, but brand-new ones as well.

Let Buyers See Themselves In Your Home The last thing you want buyers to feel when viewing your home is that they’re intruding into someone’s life. Avoid clutter such as too many knick-knacks. Decorate in neutral colors, like white or beige and place a few carefully chosen items to add warmth and character. You can enhance the attractiveness of your home with a well-placed vase of flowers. Home-décor magazines are great for tips.

Deal Killer Odors -- A Must Go! You may not realize it, but odd smells from traces of food, pets and smoking can kill deals quickly. If pro-spective buyers know you have a dog, or that you smoke, they’ll start being aware of odors and seeing stains that may not even exist. Don’t leave any

clues! If your home does have odors, NEUTRALIZE them. Do not use air fresheners to cover them up. Nothing makes a buyer more suspicious than lots of fragrance.

Be A Smart Seller -- Disclose Everything Smart sellers are proactive in disclosing all known defects to their buyers in writing. This can reduce liability and prevent law suits later on.

Its Better With More Prospects When you maximize your home’s marketability, you will most likely attract more than one prospective buyer. It is much better to have several buyers be-cause they will compete with each other; a single buyer will end up competing with you.

Still Your Emotions During Negotiations Let go of the emotion you’ve invested in your home. Be detached, using a business-like manner in your negotiations. You’ll definitely have an advantage over those who get caught up emotionally in the sit-uation.

Learn What Your Motivates Your Buyer The better you know your buyers the better you can use the negotiation process to your advantage. This allows you to control the pace and duration of the process. As a rule buyers are looking to purchase the best property they can afford for the least mon-ey. Knowing what motivates them enables you to negotiate more effectively.

What Can The Buyer Really Pay? As soon as possible, try to learn the amount of mort-gage the buyer is qualified to carry and how much his or her down payment is. If their offer is low, ask their Realtor® about the buyer’s ability to pay what your home is worth.

When Does The Buyer Want To Close? Quite often, when buyers would “like” to close is when they need to close. Knowing their deadlines for completing negotiations again gives you an edge. If they need to move quickly you may be able to get them to increase their offer in return for you leaving the property earlier than you’d planned

AlanJ@KW.com · 239-745-5070

27 Tips To Get Your Home Sold© is one of the What You Should Know© series written by Alan Johnson, Realtor, as a service to home sellers. I invite you to contact me at any time for more information.

Beware Of Buying Before Selling Be careful about buying a new home while you still own your old one. It can be done, but you’ll have two mortgages to pay and a longer than “planned” sale can lead you to the brink of disaster.

Don’t Move Out Before You Sell It has been proven that it's more difficult to sell a home that is vacant because it becomes forlorn look-ing, forgotten, no longer appealing. Buyers start getting the message that you have another home and are probably motivated to sell. This could cost you thousands of dollars.

Deadlines Create A Serious Disadvantage Don’t try to sell by a certain date. This adds unnec-essary pressure and it’s a serious disadvantage in negotiations.

A Low Offer -- Don’t Take It Personally Invariably the initial offer is below what both you and the buyer know he’ll pay for your property. Don’t be upset; evaluate the offer objectively. En-sure it spells out the offering price, sufficient depos-it, amount of down payment, mortgage amount, a closing date and any special requests. This can simp-ly provide a starting point from which you can nego-tiate.

Turn That Offer Around You can counter a low offer or even an offer that’s just under your asking price. This lets the buyer know that the first offer is close enough to “discuss” but not close enough to accept. Through negotia-tion, attempt to bring it to a acceptable level. Maybe The Buyer’s Not Qualified If you feel an offer is inadequate, now is the time to make sure the buyer is qualified. Ask how they ar-rived at their figure and suggest they compare your home to others in the neighborhood. Ensure The Contract Is Complete To avoid problems, ensure that all terms, costs and responsibilities are spelled out in the contract of sale. Leave nothing to “understanding.” You can usually rely on your Realtor® to advise you on the contract, but you should also consider having an attorney look it over as well.

Resist Deviating From The Contract Be very careful about doing anything that is not spelled out in the contract. For example, if the buy-er asks to move in prior to closing, it is best to “just say no.” Do not make ad hoc changes to accommo-date your buyer because “they’re such great folks and we really hit it off.” This is a business deal. There will be plenty of time for friendship later.

Selling Soon?

If you’re planning on selling your home in the near future, you need to make the physical aspects of the home your first priority. Concentrate first on “curb appeal” and make sure your front yard and the front of your home are as appealing as you can make them. Don’t go overboard, but clean and trim things up as best you can. Consider some new plantings, even some potted plants with colorful flowers, or a new coat of paint on your front door. Remember that no one is going to come into your home if they don’t like the look from the street. Move inside and focus on “turn-offs,” things like peeling paint, stains on the carpet or strange odors. In the short term, concentrate on things that will eliminate a negative reaction rather than undertaking big projects that attempt to create a positive impression.