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Home Seller’s Guide To Selling Your Home.
How to Think Like a Successful Home Seller in the Chicago Real Estate Market.
We get our clients the highest price in the shortest time!
Setting your sales price too high is the number 1 reason homes fail to sell. Today’s information age buyer and buyer’s Realtor can spot the wrong price quickly. Homes priced too high put off critically important prospect showings in the first weeks your listing is active. If you want a higher selling price, consider some eye-catching cosmetic enhancements or even large remodeling projects. Money spent on enhancement projects will raise your price and move the needle on appraised value. Normally, pre-MLS preparation expenses, are recaptured 100% and can increase your sales price substantially.
Ok, so you think your house is worth more than the average nearby homes in your neighborhood and that you have something ‘special?’ Well, maybe you do. Lot location & lot size, pools, updates and enhancements can add special value that buyers are willing to pay more for. In fact, buyers will pay more for the right set up.
Shopping Realtors for the Highest Listing Price is the Best Way to Fail The easiest way to undermine your efforts to sell your home for top market value is to shop Realtors until you get a price that is no longer supported by CMA Comps. Once your home has been on the market for an extended period, you begin to jeopardize the money you could have earned, had you priced your home correctly from the start.
What you should be asking prospective Realtors is to see the percentage of homes they list, to homes they Close, so you can understand the quality of the agency. About 90% of Realtors are part-timers, hungry for business, and are more prone to provide you with exactly what you want to hear versus what you should hear. There is just no getting around pricing correctly as today’s COMPS are too easily obtained by buyers and their agents. When you are at the right price, many times you get a full offer or very close to a full offer and your time on market, along with the associated interruptions are greatly reduced.
Over the years we have certainly seen many incorrectly priced homes expire, even after being re-listed with multiple agents. Had these home sellers worked with CMA values and priced their homes accordingly before their listing became stigmatized, they would have sold sooner, and for market value. Going through 3-4 Realtors is not how you succeed, but how you fail. When Realtors present you with hard facts about the market, they are for your benefit.
An experienced Realtor knows the process, challenges and how to navigate a home sale to a successful conclusion. If you want to prevent common seller mistakes, your agent’s carefully researched CMA Comp report along with critical preparation advice is key to getting top dollar and finding a buyer sooner. A teamwork mentality is exactly what you need from your agent and how we approaches our client relationships.
If your home is not under contract in 30 days, a new COMP report is needed to review market changes. Price reductions help stimulate interest and alert prospective buyers via email updates. If a new COMP report suggests a price reduction, it is generally better to act sooner before competing listings adjust their pricing.
You have something to sell, and buyers are looking for something to buy. As a seller, you control the stage, and what buyers will see, so why not direct a masterpiece? Our concept of “Lighten-up (declutter), Fix-up and Clean-up” has been a guiding agency principle for getting our MLS listings ready to sell and sold. With a near perfect success rate of 95% selling our MLS listings, our system works. Quality MLS Photography plays a big roll in helping to create a positive first impression, but great photography depends on a home that is ready to market. The above photo illustrates how 5000K LED lights can brighten interior spaces. As a seller, your primary objective is increasing your home’s impression value so your home can connect mentally and emotionally with buyers. A well prepared, well lighted, properly staged, de-cluttered and sparkling clean home sends all the right inputs a buyer needs to bring an offer.
Before a showing, turn on the lights and open the blinds! The age-old Realtor expression, “Light and Bright” is as good advice today, as it ever was. The owner said it was transformational. “Make the impression, that makes the sale” is the advise we have been sharing with clients since our beginnings.
Removing As Many, Non-mission critical personal property items from your home is a good idea. Unless, you’re a very talented stager or interior designer, with beautifully matched furnishings, it is best to go minimal. People often wonder why vacant, clean and like new homes sell so fast with just minimal accent staging? The fact is a buyer is more prone to notice and remember a house with less personal property distractions.
More importantly, sellers really need to understand they have a limited time to connect with buyers. The “clock” starts at the curb, and the precious few minutes a buyer is considering your home has a dramatic effect on what they choose to do. Every distraction that overwhelms the view-scape in your home reduces the actual time the buyer spends looking at the house itself. I can’t tell you how many times a house would have had a chance to sell had it not been for the personal property distraction seen by the buyer.
If, on the other hand, your home truly looks like an expensive model home and has a central accent theme that can actually work to your advantage. Remember you are competing for a buyer that has been through dozens of model homes and dozens of clean empty new homes. Example – If you live in a $500K home, but your furniture looks like it belongs in a $150K home, what kind of impression does this send to the buyer? Does it complement or distract? Does it help the buyer like your home more or less? Remember the buyer is trying to visualize how your house would look with their belongings in it and not yours. This is why it is always a good idea to rent a storage space and remove excessive items from your house to make your home feel more open with fewer sight distractions for the buyer to see.
My favorite saying with regard to personal property is, “when in doubt, get it out” has served me well.
When you finally get an offer, don’t blow your top if it’s not what you were expecting. It is not about you; it’s about the house. It is a business transaction that requires a cool hand to prevail, but we do understand how financials can get underneath your skin, as it can raise our eyebrows as well. Bad offers can be countered. Again, selling a home is a fact-finding exercise that began before you listed in MLS. Sure buyers can present unreasonable offers and those are easy to counter, but the goal is to use market facts to justify your price and responses to offers.
Just remember don’t take it personally, it is your agent’s job to stay professional and grounded and focused on the best outcome possible. And remember, it is a process with each individual home sale being a unique set of circumstances.
If you have questions about selling your home, please call us today at 312-416-3480