REAL ESTATE TIPS AND TRICKS – SELLING YOUR PROPERTIES
We’ve recently featured a blog to help homebuyers with acquiring their first house and along with it, the things to expect during the process. With today’s blog, we’re going to feature the other side of the endeavor – A simple guide for people wanting to sell their properties.
While the buying process usually involves a lot of preferences and ‘emotional bias’, selling properties is different, barely involves these sentiments and is usually focused on maximizing profitability.
Proper pricing and appraisal
One of the first things to consider when selling your properties is giving it the appropriate pricing. There are many factors in play for your property’s price tag and the most common things that affect these are the location, proximity to establishments, accessibility to highways and major roads, rural development and the property’s condition. (amenities, furnishings, etc.)
You do not also want to risk leaving a bad impression on people by pricing your properties high, only to suddenly lower it later nor losing a key point in negotiations.
By getting the help of a real estate agent, you can appraise your property’s values better and avoid these problems by performing CMAs (Comparative Market Analysis).
Arrange for necessary repairs or renovations
You cannot sell a tattered house. Much less, any run-down looking property.
First impressions are very crucial when it comes to real estate so it would be best to schedule for repairs and some renovations especially if your property has been around for a long time. Small things such as a dent on the wall, a squeaky or broken cabinet door, creaking stairs and floorings, and leaking faucets are all red flags for real estate professionals which they can easily spot in case your prospective buyer decides to bring his or her agent in.
One of the things people will notice first would be how the place looks like from the street – So porches or lawns needs to be tidied as well as overall curb appeal. Avoid skimping on these things if you want your place sold.
Marketing and photography
Getting professional help from photographers not only boosts your likelihood of selling the place because of the depth and color-rich photos, but these materials would also be necessary for any online marketing campaigns for your real estate as well as setting up virtual tours and showcase.
And chances are, if you’re employing the help of real estate agencies, they probably have their own professional photographers as well so make sure to leverage on that whenever possible.
Staging and preparing for an Open House
“Staging” is a commonly-encountered term in the real estate industry when decluttering and moving is done to make key rooms more appealing and ready for open house tours or other visits.
By properly staging your property, you must make sure that not only the place is cleaned, personal effects such as family portraits must also be taken away. Kitchen counters should contain only essentials and some utensils are not even required as display. In fact, for hygienic and sanitary reasons, you should not leave them there. It’s also a good idea to relocate furniture for easier navigation – Guests are more likely to be annoyed if they had to keep dodging a lot of things while touring around and shimming through tight spaces so make sure unnecessary fixtures are properly taken out or stored in the basement. Likewise, an attic, basement or garage full of clutter and chaos will definitely scare your prospects. Strive to clean and tidy these parts as well to avoid having the place looking like some setting in a B-rated horror flick. We’ve seen terrible sellers skip these places in hopes that the prospective buyer would not bother checking these sections of the house until the deal is closed and it is a terrible practice.
Another reason why these sections should be properly tidied and sorted out is to avoid potential stray animals nesting and hiding in the recesses of these areas which could also pose potential hazards.
Once your property is set for an open house, coordinate with your real estate agent start scheduling visits. Organize tours by batches so as not to cause any inconvenience to your neighborhood and too many onlookers could also cause some ruckus.
Things to expect during negotiations and under contracts
Once you and a prospect had begun negotiating on the place, agree on terms of payment and other conditions (which also includes legal process), you are now ‘under contract’.
Depending on the agreed duration of the due diligence period, the property will be thoroughly inspected by the procuring party or buyer, along with their own real estate agent assisting them as well as their legal consultant/s.
Just because the place is no longer actively listed for sale during this period doesn’t mean you should neglect and become too complacent; ANY unsavory instance or unforeseen circumstances that may occur during this period, due to your negligence, could result in the deal not going through, especially if these things were not evident or seen in the initial inspections and visits.
Once things are settled, the closing phase is confirmed and the buyer with his or her agent will do a final walk-through of the entire place to make sure that terms and conditions under the contract are met, things that are supposed to remain are still intact, and as previously mentioned, there are no surprise damages.
Some common mistakes to look out for when selling your property
Refusing to ‘neutralize’ the place – It’s common practice to make sure that the place is not only tidied up, but walls and interiors should be repainted with clean, neutral colors such as gray, white or beige and minimal decors. People want the freedom of customizing their place and this allows them to conveniently start fresh from a clean slate.
Selling for no apparent reason – This can cause suspicion to potential buyers and waiting for signs that simply won’t come will get you stuck waiting forever with a dead asset.
Intolerance and inflexibility – Sometimes, potential buyers will have simple requests such as specific meeting places and times and turning these down could leave a bad impression on your prospect. Negotiations for closing costs could go wrong as well if you are not being flexible with it and even simple gestures such as taking offense for the buyer’s remarks of remodeling and renovating the place according to his or her needs could cause the deal to fall off. Keep in mind that the buyer is also going to be using the property according to his or her needs and they are entitled to do so.