Serious About Selling? 5 Steps to Make Your Home
the Best in Your Community
By John Foster, Realtor with Keller Williams
770 722-7010
We all want to be good neighbors. But when it comes to selling your home, it’s not just about “keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s about outshining them at every opportunity!
If you’re looking to sell your home fast and for the most money possible, you’ll need a strategy to set it apart from all the other listings competing for buyers in your area. That’s why I’ve outlined my proven, five-step plan for serious sellers.
Use these five tactics to help your listing get noticed, win over buyers, and net a higher sales price than your neighbors!
STEP 1: Stage Your Home to Show Its Full Potential
The average seller will do the minimum to prepare their home for market: clean and declutter, fix anything that’s broken, mow the lawn. And while those tasks are essential, today’s buyers want more than just a clean house and tidy yard. When they dream of buying a new home, they envision a designer house with modern finishes. Help them see your property’s full potential by staging it.
Home staging is one of the hottest trends in real estate—because it works! According to the Real Estate Staging Association, homes that are professionally staged spend 73% less time on the market.1
So what exactly is staging? In a broad sense, staging is the act of preparing your home for market. The goal is to highlight your home’s strengths, minimize any deficiencies, and help buyers envision themselves living in the space. When staging a home, you might rearrange the furniture to make a room feel larger or remove heavy curtains to make it appear brighter.
Some sellers choose to hire a professional home stager, who has specialized training and experience, to maximize the appeal of their home to the largest number of potential buyers. Others may opt to do it themselves, using guidance from their agent.
We can help you determine the appropriate budget and effort required to push your home ahead of the competition in your neighborhood. The good news is, an investment in staging pays off. A 2018 survey found that 85% of staged homes sold for 6-25% more than their unstaged neighbors homes.2
STEP 2: Draw Buyers in with the Right Number of High-Quality Listing Photos
You only have one chance to make a first impression with potential buyers. And many buyers will view photos of a listing before they decide whether or not to visit it in person. In fact, 87% of buyers find photos “very useful” in their home search.3 Poor-quality or amateur-looking listing photos could keep buyers from ever stepping through your door.
Since good photography plays such an important role in getting your property noticed, we only work with the top local professionals to photograph our listings. But we don’t just rely on their photography skills when it comes to showcasing your home.
We go the extra mile to ensure your listing photos showcase the true essence of your home. We’re always on site during the photo shoot to help the photographer capture the best angles and lighting, and to let them know about unique or compelling selling features that they should photograph. The extra effort pays off in the end. In fact, listings with high-quality photography sell 32% faster than the competition … and often for more money!4
STEP 3: Price Your Home to get Multiple Offers
Even in a strong real estate market, there are homes that will sit unsold for months on end. The longer a homes sits on the market the less money the Seller will sell the home for. Buyers tend to imagine that there must be something wrong with the property, even if it’s not the case.
But why are those houses still on the market in the first place? It’s because they are often priced too high.
Every buyer has a budget. And most will be viewing listings within a particular price range. If your property is overpriced, it can’t properly compete with the other houses they’re viewing that are priced correctly. Which means it’ll sit on the market until you’re eventually forced to drop the price.
Alternatively, if you price your home correctly, it can be a home that generates multiple offers, even a bidding war. This can lead to emotionally-attached buyers, who are often willing to pay a premium or settle for fewer seller concessions. And in certain markets, it can lead to a multiple-offer situation, or bidding war. The end result? More money in your pocket.
We can help you determine the ideal listing price for your home in the current market. Pricing it properly in the beginning is the best way to ensure a fast and profitable sale. John Foster is a full time Realtor and his system is called the 72Sold system - ask him how his system produces amazing offers in a short period of time.
STEP 4: Let the Home Shine
Once buyers are interested enough to schedule a visit, it’s crucial that you put on a good show at each showing.
The first step is to make your home readily available—and often on short notice—for buyers to see it. A missed showing is a missed opportunity to sell your home. If you set too many restrictions on when it’s available to view, busy buyers will simply skip over your listing and move on to the next one.
Part of making your home available means keeping it relatively show-ready as long as it’s on the market. Most of us don’t live picture-perfect lives, and our homes reflect the day-to-day reality of our busy (and sometimes messy) families. But a little extra effort spent keeping your home clean, fresh-smelling, and ready for buyers will help it sell faster … which means you can get back to your regular routine as quickly as possible!
STEP 5: Use a Proven System
Most agents are still marketing their listings like they did 20 years ago… put a sign in the yard, put the listing in the MLS, and pray that it sells. Yet, we know that 93% of buyers search for real estate listings online.3
Do not leave the sale of your home up to chance. Follow a proven system that works. My system is called 72Sold - and it works!! I have even had sellers say to me - something like getting multiple offers is not something that would happen for me - and then it did!! Trust my system. I invest in the latest training and technology—to ensure your listing appears in the places where buyers are most likely to look. 
By utilizing online and social marketing platforms to connect with consumers and offline channels to connect with local real estate agents, your property gets maximum exposure to prospective buyers.
LET’S GET MOVING
Are you thinking about listing your home? Get a head start on your competition! Contact us for a copy of our Home Seller’s Guide, which offers a complete guide to the home selling process. Or call us to schedule a free no-commitment consultation. We’d love to put together a custom plan to maximize the sales potential of your property!
Call John Foster today at 770 722-7010 or Click Here book a time for John to call you.
Sources:
1.Real Estate Staging Association - https://www.realestatestagingassociation.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=304550&module_id=164548
2.Home Staging Resources -
https://www.homestagingresources.com/2018-home-staging-statistics/
3.National Association of Realtors -
https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/2018-real-estate-in-a-digital-world-12-12-2018.pdf
4.RIS Media -
https://rismedia.com/2018/12/12/shocking-stats-importance-photography-real-estate/
