Fresh (Good) pictures, accessibility to the property, the right price is the best recipe for seller success.
Pictures are worth a $1000 dollars. Houses like people have their good picture taking days and their bad days. I have shown a number of houses that almost didn’t get any “buyer love” because of bad pictures. Before inviting me in to take a snapshot, think IKEA: I Keep Excellent Accommodations in showroom condition.
What is the real secret to IKEA’s success? They are a concept company. They sell the idea of what could be and when you are selling your home, you are essentially selling a dream, a idea of what could be. Many sellers make the assumption that their house is in great, livable condition. Some sellers say. “If I can live here like this, so will others.” Not True. In fact, we recommend that you follow the following top 3 tips to home selling your home. Home Selling success lies in your hands!
Step 1: Plan Your Pictures. Good, Fresh Photos Start Even Before Your Home’s Pictures Are Taken: Keeping excellent accommodations involves a pre-showing, definitely a pre-listing clean-up, which might include removing furniture, de-cluttering, a little bit staging and painting. Focus on creating a pleasant and inviting atmosphere and maintain it during the showing period, and do so before the your Internet display pictures are taken.
Also, part of selling is selling what’s in demand. Oftentimes, you might find that you have a home that has fallen out of fashion. Example: a home with wood paneling. Wood panels are not in fashion, at least not on the east coast, not since the 70s or 80s. If you have the time and the budget to de-panel, do it. Spend a little bit now to make more money later!
Next, add the following to your recipe for additional flavor. When adding paint to your marketing or pre-listing clean-up plan, consider neutral colors in rooms where the colors can overwhelm a future homeowner. Purple, grey and orange are colors that do not photographs well. If you have darker colored rooms, consider repainting. Paint is an inexpensive price to pay for an additional $1000. If buyer doesn’t have to paint immediately, he or she thinks, “Good, I don’t have to paint right away. That’s money save and I can move in immediately.” This thought makes your home more marketable and more attractive when it comes time for the buyer to make an offer.
Step 2: Make it Accessible: Lock Boxes, short notice appointments and maybe taking a walk when an agent arrives to show your home makes your home more accessible.
Making your home accessible to buyers is just as important as pricing it right. Never cancel an appointment if you don’t seriously have to and arrive at home earlier and stay later when possible around appointments. Agents and their buyer clients are prone to encounter traffic, missed trains, and over or under estimate their arrival or departure time. Have your cell phone ready for all appointments if you absolutely need to be home when the showing appointment takes place. Venture to stay in contact with the agent. This means having the agent’s phone number handy when you are waiting so that you can touch basis.
FYI: Agents sometimes respond faster to text messages or email. So, if you are a stickler for punctuality or simply pressed for time, get the agent’s name, email address and cell phone number so that you can confirm accordingly. Oh, and yes, definitely consider adding a lock box to your home. Some agents will not show your home if it’s inaccessible.
Step 3: Pricing it Right: Don’t get Caught Up Chasing the Market!
The first 60-90 days is the most important time in a Listing’s shelf life. Buyers who are looking for a home in your area may have been looking for homes for a period of months, weeks, even years in some cases. Most serious buyers are on some auto-email list of new homes for sale and as soon as your home goes live on the MLS, many buyers and agents are immediately notified. In which case, that immediate notification creates traffic and enthusiasm about your home. Hence, your best marketing time occurs during the first few months of your listing. If you price to high from the beginning, you’ll risk chasing the market and never really getting ahead of it, which will ultimately costs you a lot of money in the long run.
Angie Perez is a NJ Circle of Excellence award winning real estate agent for Weichert, Realtors in Edison. She sells anywhere from 12-25 houses per year on a consistent basis since 2005. Ms. Perez is primarily a buyer's agent on 60% of her real estate sales where she represents rental income investors, first time home buyers & trade up home buyers of 1-4 family homes within specific towns encompassing 4 NJ counties: Union, Essex, Middlesex and Somerset County. Many of Ms. Perez's clients appreciate her ability to negotiate favorable real estate deals for them. Many of her clients commented that her research abilities, her honesty, her knowledge of local market trends and her proficiency to manage multiple real estate transactions from start to close are some of the reasons why she was hired as their agent of choice. Please call, text or email Angie Perez to ask if she lists or sell in your town. If she can not help you, Ms. Perez would be more than happy to help or refer you to someone who can. Cell: 973-715-6210 email: angie @ njretoday .com
123 Lincoln Highway Edison, NJ, 08852 USA
angie@njretoday.com • (973-715-6210)
Good info, Angie. Specially about pricing. If priced properly, it will sell! I haven’t lived in Jersey for years so I’m not familiar with current stats but here in Maui sales activity has been increasing pretty steadily the last 6 months (with expected stability the rest of the year).
Yes, in NJ, price is driving this market! I have an example of a house that’s been chasing the market. Check back in a week or so for that blog entry.
I thought it was really insightful what you said about selling the “idea” of your home. It’s important to keep your home looking good, but with the bare minimums. This way, people can “fill in the blanks” with their own ideas and visions.
And with pricing, I think sellers should keep in mind that pricing high in most cases only hurts them and chases potential buyers away. We want to pull people in and get them interested in the house, and afterwards negotiate a good price. Sellers need to keep that in mind when pricing a house as well.