1. Shop for a Realtor
We suggest you interview at least 3 realtors, even if you already used a buyer’s agent in purchasing your home. Often, homeowners will settle for a friend of a friend, or a neighbor, to sell their home, and then find out they don’t have a plan beyond putting up a sign and hoping it sells.
2. Get a Competitive Market Analysis on Your Home
Only active listings are available on the syndicated sites like Zillow and Realtor.com, and their automated valuations are notoriously uneven.
But every realtor will give you a free competitive market analysis that compares your home to comparable sold properties. The MLS system will generate a report for you that lists and apples to apples comparison to help you determine the correct price. In addition to helping with your listing price, getting multiple CMA’s can help you choose a realtor.
3. Determine a Realistic but Competitive List Price
In real estate, you can never ignore supply and demand. Real estate is hyper local, with each home, neighborhood, and area factoring in on both its selling price, and how long it takes to sell.
According to NAR statistics, listing your home at its likely market price captures the highest percentage of possible views from your target buyers.
If a home is 10% above the expected market price, the total number of views the listing gets drops in half.
If a home is 10% below the expected market price, the total number of views it gets only goes up by 15%. The amount of extra views it generates usually doesn’t make up for starting off at a lower list price.
4. What Repairs Should I Do?
If you watch much HGTV, you’ll get the impression that doing repairs will raise the value of your home by more than the cost.
This may or may not be true. A good place to start is by checking out the cost vs value reports issued by both the National Association of Realtors and Remodeling Magazine.
View and Download the NAR 2022 Remodeling Report
View and Download the 2022 Remodeling Magazine Austin Cost/Value Report
Please note- the prices for rehabilitations might seem high, and some projects can be DIY. However, it’s best to be careful when attempting any DIY remodeling, as if it’s not done well, or is not neutral, it will be seen by prospective buyers as something that needs to be redone, thus lowering the overall value.
5. Declutter, Touch Up, and Landscape
First impressions mean a lot, whether you’re meeting someone new or looking for a house to buy. And, if you’re selling your home, making sure prospective buyers are getting the best first impression can make a big difference – not only in how quickly your house sells, but for how much.
In real estate lingo, first impressions hinge on “curb appeal,” the attractiveness of the outside of a home from the street. Homes with great curb appeal sell for an average of 7% more than comparable properties that lack exterior charm, according to the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics.
A clean home, with freshly-washed siding and windows, is a basic necessity. Beyond that, focus primarily on what buyers notice first when driving up to a house – the landscape and entryway. But they’re also looking for usable outdoor space, so if you have it, you should showcase it.
Fresh paint – A front door doesn’t necessarily need to be neutral. A door in a vibrant red or energizing yellow color is an instant attention getter, and all it costs is a can of paint to DIY. You could go further with freshly-painted shutters, and even siding if it’s not too big a project.
Clean up overgrown beds in front of the house and along pathways. Add colorful annuals and mulch in the flower beds, and have the trees and bushes trimmed – especially if they’re blocking windows.
After the last two years of pandemic life, outdoor spaces like front porches and back decks that serve as everyday retreats are more desirable than ever. A front porch, patio, or seating area should be clean and inviting, with plants and furnishings (bonus points for a porch swing!). If you don’t have the budget to build a new structure, create the illusion of a dedicated space with furniture, outdoor rugs, and accessories.
Inside make sure that you declutter to make your rooms look larger. Organize closets as best you can, as buyers will look in your closets and cabinets. If you have a storage space, they can be very helpful, and often sellers will put excess items in their garage, since a below grade space like a garage or shed are generally understood by buyers to be where you might have some clutter.
6. Use Professional Photography
With over 90% of buyers looking for homes online, photography has become extremely important. The longer someone looks at a listing, the more likely they are to want to see it in person.
According to the National Association of Realtors, homes with professional photographs sell 32% faster than those without. When combined with having more than 20 pictures to look at, your listing is optimized to attract and retain prospective buyers online.
It’s best to take pictures of everything, including areas that aren’t as photogenic as others. It’s best for buyers to have as much information as possible before they see a property, including any flaws. Buyers are forgiving of flaws but tend to react negatively if they don’t find out about them until they’re at the house.
At The Doss Team, we pay for a professional photographer to come and take pictures of your home. Since it’s an upfront cost, that might not be something every realtor is willing to do, but they can help you find a photographer for a fairly low cost. It’s almost always worth it.
7. Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Truthfully, social media is a bit overrated when it comes to selling your home. It does help to put your listing on your own social media, but for realtors, it does a lot more to help attract new prospects than sell your particular home.
However, the social media companies are run on putting ads in front of people who are searching for a product. We’ve all had the experience of looking up something online, or on social media, and then having the algorithm try to sell you products based on the keywords you used.
Due to this, it can be helpful to pay a small amount for PPC advertising, either on social media or search engines. At The Doss Team, we include this as part of our listing packages, but it’s another element that can be done yourself by simply posting your home’s listing and boosting it yourself. The cost per click is usually decent, and you can control the total amount you want to spend.