How To Sell Your House Quickly And For The Highest Price Possible
Posted by Cherry Creek Realty Services on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 3:28pm.If you’re looking to sell your home and get the highest price possible, you must master the following 3 factors. The first two are what the “typical realtor” will preach is important.
The last factor is by far the most critical and it’s where the vast majority of people and realtors fail in trying to sell houses…
1) The first factor in selling your home is to make sure it is Competitively Priced.
Having your home priced competitively as it relates to the overall market and other comparable properties from the start is a key component.
What you need to remember is that any potential buyers in the marketplace are looking at all types of properties. After they’ve viewed just a few properties, they will know what $200,000 will buy them.
If your home is overpriced it will be evident and may prevent you from getting an offer all together. With that said, you don’t have to sell your home for less than it’s worth! Many sellers make the mistake of thinking that if they lower the price enough, the property will sell sooner. This just isn’t the case.
A house that is selling for an amount that is reflective to the market will get offers. It’s as simple as that. Our company has been selling single family investment properties since 2002 and in doing so we’ve become experts on how to maximize the sales price that’s offered.
We sell homes for the highest price that a house can sell for. We do that because of the next 2 factors…
2) Showing Appeal - A home that shows wells and is appealing to prospective buyers makes a difference, but not as much as most Realtors would have you think:
Research has shown that a well-staged home sells virtually as well as an average-staged home. What does make a HUGE DIFFERENCE is ELIMINATING ANY NEGATIVES about the property.
If your home doesn’t smell quite right or if your home has a crack in the paint or a window that doesn’t close or a big stain on the carpet, these are the types of showing factors that can literally kill a deal.
Our staging and home presentation expertise really comes down to making your house look, smell and feel good while finding and eliminating any and all of the negatives that could prevent offers from coming in.
3) Marketing - Also Known As: GETTING BUYERS
Last but certainly not least is the make-or-break factor in whether your home actually sells or not. The game plan for most lazy realtors and sellers is to put a sign in your yard, list it on the MLS, and “hope for the best.” In a hot market this will actually work some of the time but in a market like ours now it’s a recipe for failure.
If you truly want to sell your home and receive the best price possible, then the number one factor that will determine your success or failure is solely based on the number of prospective buyers that view your property - as it’s truly a numbers game.
The formula for success that we’ve developed over the last eight years is a five-step process that drives tons of buyers to each of our properties:
• Getting Buyers From Google –
The biggest trend in real estate right now, according to the National Association of Realtors, is 94% of all people begin their home search online.
In addition, 85% of all of these searches are done through Google.com. If you’re looking to sell a home in 2010 and you are looking for potential buyers, IT IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST THAT YOU CONSISTENLY FIND AND WORK WITH BUYERS THROUGH GOOGLE.
We designed our website, www.BuyNowColorado.com, to be the most user friendly real estate search website available. With the number of potential buyers we capture every day, the results show we’ve done just that.
We spend roughly $8,000-$10,000 per month to advertise with Google which drives 1,200-1,500 unique buyers to our website each month. That combined with a support staff that contacts the buyers the minute they register on our website gives us the best chance to build a relationship and ultimately show them our properties.
• Getting Buyers From Craigslist and Other Real Estate Websites –
One of the best places to find buyers in today’s market is through Craig’s List.
Placing an ad every 48 hours that shows a person who’s renting right now that they can own a home for the same monthly payment -- gets buyers in droves! This is an extremely powerful marketing plan that NOBODY is doing.
Everyone talks about the price of the home. They say that their home is listed for $218,000. What does that mean to a renter? It means nothing.
If you tell a renter that he can OWN the same home for $1143 a month with no money down---You Have His Instant Attention.
We place over 100 Craig’s List ads every single day.
• Getting Buyers From A Compelling House Brochure –
A brochure should never be designed to show the features of a property, but rather it should be designed to take a potential buyer and give them a call to action to take a next step. This is Marketing 101.
You see flyers all the time that talk about the lovely bay-window or the walk in closet. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out these kinds of features, BUT without a call-to-action for the buyer to take the next step like: “Call the number at the bottom to find out how you can own this home with No Money Down” is worthless.
A brochure is a SALES PIECE—not a piece of art. It should always be designed to capture the interest of the highest number of buyers and give them a simple, direct call-to-action for the next step.
• Getting Buyers From A Response-Driven Yard Sign –
Realtors have some of the biggest egos out of any other group in our economy. They usually have the glossiest business cards and the most expensive flyers and a personalized logo that has been designed by a professional graphic artist.
Why do Realtors do this? They do it because they believe THEY ARE THEIR MARKETING. Realtors believe that if they have the best looking sales materials then they must be perceived to be the best person to sell someone’s home. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Some of the most basic and straightforward marketing is the most effective in finding buyers. And by the way, that’s what you want—TO FIND BUYERS, not to look pretty. We use a sign that says “FOR A SHOWING CALL 303-991-2211”. This is as straightforward as it gets, but you know what? I’ve never seen another sign that says that.
We get almost 2 showings per week on just the sign alone. All other signs get far less than that, because most people wouldn’t know they could view a home without it being spelled out for them.
• Having Showing Agents Available and Ready to Talk With Buyers and Show Your Home 24 Hours A Day and 7 Days A Week –
Do you know what the only thing worse than having bad marketing when selling your house? Having great marketing to sell your house and nobody to follow through!
I see some decent marketing from time to time when people are looking to sell their house. Some people do have some good ideas. When I see marketing that catches my eye, I always call the number to see what they do next.
Do you know what happens 9 times out of 10? NOBODY ANSWERS THE PHONE! And worse yet, the message doesn’t say anything about the home for sale! Can you believe that? These are people or agents that have taken the time to invest in some decent advertising to sell their homes and they have actually gotten potential buyers to do what they wanted…to call the number on the advertising.
Then they ruin any chance they have at getting a deal done by not having a full time person to answer the phone EVERYTIME IT RINGS. We know we’re a little over-the-top with our company, but we have someone available to answer the phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, we have dedicated phone lines to give a potential buyer more information about the house and a Direct Call-To-Action.
These are the little things that 99% of people selling their houses fail at miserably, but it’s is probably the single most critical thing to do.
So when a potential buyer calls about a house what should you do? The answer isn’t what you might think. Most people would give them some details about the home, tell them the price, and let them know how long it’s been on the market…THIS IS ALL WRONG!
When someone calls the number on one of our marketing pieces, a live person answers the phone IMMEDIATELY. This is a sales professional that knows what they’re doing and has been trained by us to follow this exact format.
We train them to answer the phone in this exact way: “Hi this is Heidi, are you calling about the house for sale?” This allows us to have control over the call and lead where it will go. The potential buyer usually is a little off guard and says yes.
From there, the sales agent tells them that they’re actually in the neighborhood and if they can wait 5 minutes, she’ll show them the property right now. The only way a potential buyer is going to make you an offer on your home is if they VIEW IT. That’s why the single most important factor in selling a house is in the number of showings.
CONCLUSION:
There are never any guarantees that a house will sell and at what price. However, there are some fundamental truths when it comes to having the very best chance to sell your house quickly and at a high price. The bottom line is that MARKETING plays the largest role in when a home will sell.
A home that is priced well that nobody sees, will not sell.
A home that is staged beautifully that nobody sees, will not sell.
A home that is priced high that shows poorly can sell, but only if buyers are looking at it….And this only comes from marketing.
The most important thing to remember is that a home that is priced high and shows poorly can sell with the right marketing. If you take that same house and price it reasonably and make it show magnificently, the home WILL SELL…And it will be at the highest price possible.
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