How to Sell a House Successfully

There are different approaches to consider taking when selling your residential home. Many key variables come into play that effect the result you will receive.

Top Factors to Successfully Sell Your Home

• Market Value
• Positioning
• Preparation
• Promotions
• Risk Management
• Escrow Management

Market Value of Your Home

The biggest factor is the condition of the market at the time you choose to sell. There are many things you can do to improve the successful sale of your home but the condition of the market is the ultimate factor to pay attention to.

For example, if you do everything right; hire the best real estate agent, apply high levels of professional preparation, marketing and promotions but have your home listed too high for the current market, chances are you will not have a successful sale. The offer price you finally accept may be lower then what you wanted, the time to sell could be longer then what you expected, or you may get discouraged and remove your home from being listed all together.

If this latter scenario happens, unfortunately there are residual consequences to navigate when you decide to relist. Information about your home being listed previously without selling can be difficult to completely expunge from search engines and online websites such as Zillow and Homes.

At a future date when you decide to relist and try selling your home again, a potential buyer may come across your previous unsuccessful attempt and become suspicious of your homes value. This leads to the same problem your original unsuccessful attempt created; a low level of trust from potential buyers.

The correct sale price of your home is similar to comparing it to the price for stock. When you purchase stock you must purchase it at market value. The market value at the time of your purchase determines the purchase price for the stock. You can’t determine how much you want to pay for a certain stock and obtain it for the price you came up with. Instead, the market determines your purchase price.

The same principle applies to the sale price of your home. The housing market in general and your specific local housing market determines the market bearing sale price of your home. There are variables that can push that price up to a certain degree but ultimately the market determines your sale price.

Positioning the Sale Price

Here is where risk management enters the equation. It is very important to invest in a real estate agent that will take the time and be very meticulous about pinpointing the precise market sale price for your home at the time of the listing. If the sale price is not positioned correctly you raise the risk of not selling. If it’s listed too low you raise the risk of losing some of the profit from your equity.

It is very important to position and list your home to target what I call the “Home Sale Sweet Spot”. This is when a home has been priced correctly for the current local market and is positioned and prepared to sell within an eleven day time frame. The eleven day window is when buyers trust level in making an offer on your home is the highest. This creates a purchase negotiation that is the lowest risk because it has the highest trust level. It creates a buyer seller environment that is prime for success for all parties.

On the contrary, when a property is listed too high and it is on the market for longer then eleven days the risk of not selling increases incrementally with each day thereafter. The first eleven days is the optimal sale time frame. When your property is still on the market longer then the Home Sale Sweet Spot, buyers trust in the proposed value of your property decreases. More energy is required to obtain an offer. When an offer is accepted, an increased likely hood of repair requests and subsequent lowering of your profit is most likely to occur.

A lot of property owners think the approach of listing high and adjust as needed is the best. The problem with this approach is that they may unknowingly place themselves outside of the Home Sale Sweet Spot and raise risk. It is a high risk strategy.

In order to create the best result it is very important to strategically position your home at the right market price and aim to sell within the Home Sale Sweet Spot. This will provide you with the lowest risk, best market price in the shortest amount of time.

Prepare Your Home to Sell

Having addressed the biggest factor in your home’s value and what sale price is possible, other variables come into play. As with any asset being presented and available to be purchased it is critical to present your property in the very best condition possible.

Hiring a professional real estate agent pays off when it comes to preparing your home for the sale event. It is very important to make strategic repairs, clean and de-clutter as much as possible, collect property documents, confirm a cleared title and the like.

In addition, there are different levels of staging which should be conducted. As much as the home owner will allow, applying staging effort will help the buyers experience as they move through your home and will impact the offer they make.

Promote Your Home to Sell

After the preparation phase, the promotion phase kicks in. Promotions should all be very specific to your unique property attributes, targeted to optimal markets and designed to draw in buyers that are a good match for the home sale opportunity. Your home campaign should include a pre-sale phase as well as the actual Home Sale Sweet Spot promotional phase.

Escrow Management

After you receive offers for your home, negotiations, contract management and the escrow process should be managed effectively. You don’t want to go through all of the hard work to receive and select a good offer only to have it fall apart because of some detail that was overlooked. A professional real estate agent will be the best person to keep everything on track and in order. This creates for you, the home owner, the least amount of risk as you move to the closing table.

Selling your home successfully takes expertise, market knowledge, strategic positioning, expert preparation, risk management, aggressive and professional marketing campaigns unique to your property and the right industry specific knowledge applied at every turn to move an offer smoothly through to completion. At the end of the day you will be happy you invested in the right help and chose the best strategy that takes advantage of the Home Selling Sweet Spot.