Sell your Home Tips
1.) Make your Home Easy to show.
Want your home to sell fast? Make sure your home is available to be shown on demand, or as close as possible to that. Inconvenient? Yes. Frustrating? Sometimes. A challenge to keep the place clean at all times? Assuredly. But, decide what your priorities are and, if you decide that getting top dollar for your home is at the top of that priority list, then also decide to be willing to deal with the inconvenience involved getting your home sold. Try to avoid an arcane obstacle course of phone calls, 24 hour notice requirements, strange hours of availability and more phone calls to get an appointment to see the place.
Your home could be priced well and marketed well, but if you make it too difficult for buyers to get in to see it, the statistical probability is that they will (a) find and choose another home from those that are more easily accessible to view, and/or (b) assume you are not motivated to sell, get irritated and pass on your home as a result.
2.) Stage your Home.
Immaculate look and function. The homes that get offers are those with look, feel and function that can be described in one word: covetable. You’re not trying to create a situation in which your home barely edges out the listing down the street in the hearts and minds of your target buyer. Keep your home uncluttered, clean and aied out. Pay attention to details and . Let your agent check the house before you accept any potential buyers to see how you can improve the staging further.
- Immaculate from the inside out - basements, garages and crawl spaces included
- Decluttered and staged to the nines - including fresh paint, carpet and other things that need replacing
- in fine mettle - make sure things like doors, windows and systems buyers test (e.g., stoves, faucets, heating and air conditioning) are not creaky, wonky, leaky or otherwise dysfunctional - and if you’ve done any major home improvements or replaced any appliances or systems lately, market that fact to show off the move-in readiness of the place.
Open Houses & Market Exposure
3.) Just enough market exposure. If your home is so lucky as to get an offer the first day or so on the market, count your blessings. But also calculate your opportunity costs: many buyers can’t get out to see homes that quickly - some are unable to house hunt except on the weekends! An open house allows potential buyers to enter and walk through the property at their leisure and guided by a realtor. The goal of an open house is to secure interest from buyers. Lots of buyers need the flexibility of a weekend open house to see properties. Ask your Christie's International Real Estate US Virgin Islands Agent to brief you on the standard practices for market exposure in your local area.
