Home Selling

Tips on Effectively Showing Your Home for Sale

by admin on February 3, 2012

Tips on Effectively Showing Your Home for SaleSelling your home can be an all-consuming process when you consider the preparation that goes into getting the house ready for show, the cleaning, and the unexpected visits from potential buyers. And, depending on your living situation, you may be in a hurry to sell it in order to avoid making two house payments each month or simply because your partner perhaps has already moved, and various other situations.

Tips on Effectively Showing Your Home for Sale

You can move the process along more quickly by following some basic tips. One important step is to list your home with a Realtor. A real estate agent is professionally trained and very knowledgeable about selling homes. While trying the “For Sale by Owner” method seems tempting in order to cut out having to pay a real estate agent, most “For Sale by Owner” homes eventually are listed with real estate agents anyway—a high percentage of them, in fact.

So, perhaps skip the step of trying to sell it yourself, hire a real estate agent to list your home for sale, and then follow their professional tips to move your home through the process as quickly as possible.

Realtors will want you to have your home available for show at all times. While this can be quite inconvenient for you and your family (especially if you have children and pets), it is important. Real estate agents need to simply have access to your home via a lock box on your door.

If you ignore this advice, you then handicap your Realtor by requiring that he/she make an appointment to show the house that works for both you and the potential buyer. Believe it or not, this can make a buyer just skip seeing your home, and instead ride around with the realtor and view homes that are available on demand.

Reasonable real estate agents will give you a little heads up that they may be coming by in a couple hours with a potential buyer, which is helpful. Try to have your home available every time that your Realtor calls. If you refuse to let the Realtor drop by with a potential buyer, they most likely will not come back. They will just look at other homes that are available during their time together.

When you do have a Realtor and a potential buyer stopping by, do your best to not be home. If you are home, the potential buyers will probably apologize several times for interrupting your day; and, they will feel like they are bothering you. That is not a good feeling for your buyer.

You want them to feel welcome in the home–not that they are interrupting you in your home. Go somewhere. Do you have errands to run? Can you take the kids to a park or to the library? If not at least stay out of the way of the buyer and your Realtor. And, most real estate agents would recommend that you not offer any information or “chit chat” with the potential buyer; instead, just answer sufficiently the questions that they may ask.

Depending on your own level of cleanliness in your home that you typically live with, you may need to turn up the tidiness of your home for this process. Take note of the wastebaskets in the house, the lighting, the areas for your pets, and make beds. Watch for dishes throughout the home, junk mail and other papers that may be lying on countertops, and dust and vacuum regularly. Do your best to make your home appear like a display home rather than a “lived-in” home.

Continue to follow your Realtor’s advice, and you will be on your way to a pleasant and successful selling experience.

 

{ 0 comments }

6 Surprising Reasons Why FSBO Is Not the Best Way to Sell Your Home

by admin on January 16, 2012

6 Surprising Reasons Why FSBO Is Not the Best Way to Sell Your Home At first, selling your home own can seem like an attractive idea that will save you money.

That is not necessarily the case. Often times, the money a person will spend in promoting the home and listing it in other ways and the larger amount of time it will take to sell it yourself make it far more advantageous to be represented by a Real Estate Agent. There is a lot of work involved in selling a home that many people don’t realize beforehand.  Let’s look at six surprising reasons that going the FSBO route may not be a good idea.

#1 You May Miss Out on First-Time Buyers 

Do you remember being a first time buyer? Many people who have never purchased a home before will be intimidated by FSBO because they aren’t familiar with the buying process. They will prefer to be walked through it by a professional, and are less likely to trust an owner. They will consider your reasons for not hiring an agent to make the listing for you, and may think you are trying to hide something from them. This in itself will cut you out of a large portion of buyers.

#2 You May Attract Unqualified Buyers 

First time buyers aren’t the only ones who will question your ability to sell your own home. Other investors or professional buyers specifically look for homes that are for sell by owner, believing that since you are not familiar with all the details of selling a home, they can get it from you for an unreasonably low (and often unfair) price. In other cases, the buyers who look at your home may not even be qualified to purchase it!

#3 Your Realtor Has the Budget To Promote the Home 

It may seem like realtors just stick a sign out front and answer the calls that come in but that is hardly the case. Realtors spend a good deal of money in advertising.  You don’t have the budget that your Realtor has to promote your home.  Most FSBOs are stuck putting their homes out there just the local newspaper or online classified advertising.

#4 Your Realtor Can Weed Out “Lookey-Loos” 

There are a surprising number of people out there that are not legitimate buyers. These folks can waste your time, money and effort, as they have no intentions or are not qualified to buy, but may want to look at your home anyway. The time you spend showing your home to illegitimate buyers could be time spent actually selling the home to someone who is qualified. Realtors will weed out legitimate buyers from others who just want to waste your time.

#5 Your Realtor Can Handle the Red Tape

A Realtor will provide a standard real estate contract which can be altered by a lawyer. If you need to have a lawyer draft a real estate contract from scratch it will cost a lot more in the long run as far as fees are concerned. 

#6 A Realtor is a Top Negotiator 

Part of a Realtors job is to represent you. Before the sale gets to closing, buyers may make requests or demands that you would be less agreeable about or that would be unfair to you. A Realtor can make these negotiations, and help both parties arrive at resolutions that work for everyone. They are familiar with these kinds of situations, and know how to handle them.

This guest post was provided by Melbourne Real Estate agent Mitch Ribak who helps many home buyers find the perfect Palm Bay FL real estate and Port St. John real estate.

{ 0 comments }